God's Gift of Unspeakable Grace - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 6/20/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89:1-18; Numbers 16:1-19; Romans 3:21-31; Matthew 19:13-22

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)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

Throughout the book of Numbers, Moses prepares the 2nd generation to cross over into the Promised Land. Here in Proper 7 of the Daily Office, our lectionary has us in the middle portion of Numbers, a section that recounts a series of rebellions. These rebellions illustrate different aspects of the sinfulness of the human heart. This middle section of the Book of Numbers also offers a series of images of mediation, as Moses stands between the people and the consequences of their faithlessness.

Breathtaking presumption. Korah’s and his followers’ claim that “all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them” is partially correct, but mostly wrong. They are correct in that the Lord had indeed said that Israel would be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). They are correct in that the Lord dwells “in their midst” (Numbers 5:3). 

But Korah and company are more wrong than they are correct, because they fail to take into account how the congregation becomes holy. A sinful people are inherently unholy. In the first place, that means they must be shielded from the presence of the Holy One—thus, the permission for Moses alone to ascend the holy mountain back in Exodus 24. In the second place, that means their holiness must be established through God-ordained sacrifices (for instance, the Day of Atonement sacrifices in Leviticus 16, symbolizing purification for sin) and then maintained through God-instructed living (“You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy,” Leviticus 19:6). 

Breathtaking stupidity. Further, Korah and his followers are profoundly wrong to claim that Moses and Aaron “exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord” and “lord it over us” (Numbers 16:3, 13). At age 40, Moses had indeed taken it upon himself to deliver his people, when he killed the Egyptian—and had failed miserably (Exodus 2:11-14; Acts 7:23-29). For the next 40 years, he had tended his father-in-law’s sheep in obscurity. At 80 years of age the Lord had appeared to him in a burning bush and, over Moses’s protestations, had called him to this task (Exodus 3 & 4; Acts 7:30-36). Aaron was pressed into service because of Moses’s claim to inelegance of speech: “I am slow of speech and slow of tongue” (Exodus 4:10). And Numbers has already stated, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). Moses doesn’t have a “dog in this fight,” nor any “turf to defend.” He’s willing to let the Lord show how He wants to order leadership among the Israelites. Not to mention, Korah and his family—of the tribe of Levi—had already been set apart in service to Yahweh and his people! What??

Breathtaking remedy. Numbers is part of a whole history that proves, according to Paul in Romans 2–3:20), that Israel is just as sinful as the rest of the human race (Romans 1). Paul draws the lessons from Israel’s history (Romans 2–3) and adds it to his indictment of the rest of the human race (Romans 1). Paul’s summation is that, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…”. And that summation leads to perhaps the profoundest words he is ever to pen: “…they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:24-26). 

The tangled history of Israel has led to this singular Son, Jesus Christ, whose atoning sacrifice the heavenly Father would set forth to cover all the Korahs and all our rebellions. Here is God’s gift of unspeakable grace, in fulfillment of his promise to make right all that went wrong in the Garden, all that went wrong in the wilderness, and all that has gone wrong in the myriad of ways we continue to prove that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory.” Through Christ, the God who keeps faith becomes “just and justifier.” All that is required is that his faithfulness be met with our own faith. As Romans 1:17 has already put it: “from (understood, his) faith to (understood, our) faith.” 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Pixabay

A Listening Faith - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 6/17/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 40; Psalm 54; Ecclesiastes 5:1-7; Galatians 3:15-22; Matthew 14:22-36

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)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

Today is the Friday following Trinity Sunday. Given where Easter falls this year, our readings should have us in Proper 6 of the Daily Lectionary, but my teaching schedule with my friends at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies has caused me to scramble things a bit. This week, we are contemplating passages from Proper 4 — I want to give some attention to the early chapters of the Book of Ecclesiastes and of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Thanks for your flexibility. Next week we will be back on track with readings from the Daily Lectionary’s Proper 7. 

Sometimes the Lord takes the props away. For our Cathedral family during the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, it was the beautiful building, the physical bread and wine, the hugs at the peace, the voices blended in praise. Sometimes other things get removed from people—a secure income, good health, close friends, a fulfilling job, a feeling of God’s presence. Your mother – or father – or spouse – or child dies. Your dog (or cat) dies. It’s awful. Sometimes all the supports disappear, and it’s just you — and the emptiness, the “vanity.” Or — it’s you — and God. 

Whatever has been the process, the Lord, in his kindness, has brought Solomon to such a place. Over the course of this week’s readings in Ecclesiastes, we have observed Solomon’s increasingly unhappy depictions of the limited satisfactions of pleasure and power, of ambition and wisdom — of life itself. He’s come to the end of himself. And he realizes it’s either him and the void (“Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.”). Or it’s him and God.

Wisely, he chooses God. But even here (Ecclesiastes being a book all about dead ends) a narrow window opens to him showing how even the choice of “religion” can be a dead end. There’s a way to try to relate to God that is itself vanity. 

A listening faith. “…to draw near to listen is better than the sacrifice offered by fools…nor let your heart be quick to utter a word before God…It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not fulfill it.” — Ecclesiastes 5:1,2,5. There is an approach to God himself that is a “sacrifice offered by fools.” Effusive religious enthusiasm and over-promising devotion to God lead to one more dead end. 

Paul amplifies the point. The zealot-turned-apostle explains that the giving of the law of Moses was designed from the beginning to make Israel attentive—to listen to the retelling of God’s promise. The law never overrode that promise. The law illuminated our tendency to be lured by sin, to lean into sin — to love sin. The law was intended to lead us to listen for the “why” of the ongoing provision for sacrifice to cover sin. To listen, and hear anew, the promise that God had already made to Abraham of an offspring who would eventually mediate the broken relationship between God and us: “… so that what was promised through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe” (Galatians 3:22). 

Jesus proves the point. Today’s passage in Matthew shows Jesus, who is Emmanuel (God-with-us) walking on water. One of his more spectacular gifts, right? What is worthy of note is the prelude: “…he went up to the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone… And early in the morning he came walking down…” (Matthew 14:23,25). In other words, he has been up there all night with his Father. Do we imagine the prayers of Jesus that night were one-sided? That Jesus did all the talking, all night long? The One who taught,“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:7-8). The book of Hebrews states that “in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission” (Hebrews 5:7-8). It’s not hard to believe that over the course of his night of prayer, there was a good measure of listening to the Father and communing deeply with him.  With all his superpowers (to apply a modern anachronism), Jesus presents himself among us to show us how to avoid the religiosity that is, in reality, just blather or bloviating vow-making. (A study of today’s Psalm, Psalm 40, reveals a form of honest prayer, displaying expressions of thanksgiving; distress; supplication; and praise.) 

By the way, I’m pretty sure that some features of today’s passage in Matthew are unique to the moment it narrates. I have friends who are skeptical about whether Jesus ever literally walked on water. I’m not. But his walking on the water looks like a “one off” phenomenon designed to make a point. The point was: trust me. Peter’s temporarily-enabled walking on water looks like it provided the teaching moment: Keep your eyes on me, and you’ll be OK. Pay attention to the storm around you, and you’ll sink. The things that transpired physically outside the boat that night appear to be unique to those moments. Their significance for life — let the reader discern. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Philipp Otto Runge, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, unfinished altarpiece that was originally commissioned to furnish the chapel in Vitt on Rügen, circa 1806-1807

A Sacred Sustenance for Souls - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 6/16/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 50; Ecclesiastes 3:16–4:3; Galatians 3:1-14; Matthew 14:13-21

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)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

Today is the Thursday following Trinity Sunday. Given where Easter falls this year, our readings should have us in Proper 6 of the Daily Lectionary, but my teaching schedule with my friends at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies has caused me to scramble things a bit. This week, we are contemplating passages from Proper 4 — I want to give some attention to the early chapters of the Book of Ecclesiastes and of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Thanks for your flexibility. Next week we will be back on track with readings from the Daily Lectionary’s Proper 7. 

Death & “life under the sun.” For Ecclesiastes, the most obvious dead end is death itself. In the face of death, according to the writer, the best that human observation can offer—the best that we who live “under the sun” can surmise—is: “Who knows whether the human spirit goes upwards and the spirit of animals goes downwards to the earth?” (Ecclesiastes 3:21). If animal existence is all there is, you cope in resignation, just going about your business oblivious to any larger question. And perhaps you raise a glass to the dead or the not-yet-born for not having to lay eyes on a world where the oppressors have power and the oppressed have only tears. Who knows, asks Ecclesiastes, if there’s any point at all to life “under the sun”? 

“Who knows, indeed?,” responds the Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft, “Here under the sun, no one. Unless there should appear here under the sun a man who came from beyond the sun, beyond the horizon of death’s night—unless we saw the Rising Son. But Solomon had not yet seen that man….” (Three Philosophies of Life [Ignatius Press, 1989, p. 47).  

The rest of the Bible, observes Kreeft, provides answers to questions that the book of Ecclesiastes raises: Who knows? What’s the point? Because the rest of the Bible has seen the Man who came from beyond the sun. 

Matthew has seen the Man from beyond the sun. Thus, in our reading today Matthew describes the day the Man from beyond the sun multiplies loaves and fishes to feed people with physical hunger, prefiguring a sacred sustenance for souls. “Taking the five loaves and two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke loaves, and gave them…” (Matthew 14:19). Jesus uses the same actions here that he will use at the Last Supper. Matthew 26:26 recounts, “While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” Matthew wants us to know that these physical provisions are gifts in promise of spiritual nourishment for bearers of the eternal, divine image. We are not soul-less animals! 

Paul, too, has seen the Man from beyond the sun—the Man who shook off the curse of death, who reversed death itself. That is why in yesterday’s reading in Galatians, Paul speaks of being crucified “with Christ.” He declares, “It is “no longer I who live…,” meaning, to paraphrase Ecclesiastes, “I no longer live ‘under the sun’,” (that is, with futility and without purpose). He continues, “…it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). 

And so, in today’s passage from Galatians, Paul rejoices because Jesus’s seemingly meaningless death—which was both like, and unlike, so many other seemingly meaningless deaths before and after his—becomes promise and hope and purpose. It is God’s blessing for Gentiles as well as for Jews (Galatians 4:3). Which is to say, it is for everybody who will believe—for all who refuse to let their horizons be defined by what is observable “under the sun,” and who say instead, “Yes!” to the Rising Son.  

I pray you say “Yes!” to Jesus today. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: adaptation, Pixabay

A Broader Horizon - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 6/15/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:49-72; Ecclesiastes 3:1-15; Galatians 2:11-21; Matthew 14:1-12

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)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

Today is the Wednesday following Trinity Sunday. Given where Easter falls this year, our readings should have us in Proper 6 of the Daily Lectionary, but my teaching schedule with my friends at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies has caused me to scramble things a bit. This week, we are contemplating passages from Proper 4 — I want to give some attention to the early chapters of the Book of Ecclesiastes and of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Thanks for your flexibility. Next week we will be back on track with readings from the Daily Lectionary’s Proper 7. 

“To everything, there is a season… — Ecclesiastes 3:1. How lovely it would be to be so perfectly attuned to the need of any moment that you instinctively know whether to plant or pluck, kill or heal, break or build, embrace or not, keep or throw away, be quiet or speak up, love or hate, make war or make peace. I don’t know anywhere in all literature in which this ideal is more elegantly expressed than in these verses. 

“That which is has already been; that which is to be already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.” — Ecclesiastes 3:15. But in any given moment, how does anyone know exactly when, for instance, to be quiet or speak up? From 1 Kings, we think of Solomon as having precisely this sense. He asked the Lord for wisdom, and the Lord made him the wisest person on earth (1 Kings 4:29-34). To illustrate the point, we are given the story of the case of the two prostitutes, disputing over one dead baby and one live baby (1 Kings 3:16-38). 

That’s all well and good. However, here in Ecclesiastes we are given the other side of the coin. What’s it like, asks Solomon in this book, when that gift doesn’t come? When prayers for wisdom seem to bounce off the sky? When the face of God cannot be discerned? When you just don’t know whether to plant or pluck, kill or heal? When you look for answers and all you get is: “That which is, already has been; that which is to be already is; and God seeks out what has gone by”? (Ecclesiastes 3:15). Huh? 

The dead end that this chapter of Ecclesiastes explores is that of having the ethical ideal in principle, but lacking insight into God’s mind to know how to pull it off. Simon and Garfunkel have been there: “Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again….” We’ve all been there. Right now, we’re probably all there to some extent: return to public life, or stay hunkered down? Speak out and risk pouring gasoline on the fire, or be quiet and risk giving way to the haters? 

“‘Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.’” — Matthew 14:8. Then there’s the beheading of John the Baptist. He knew his mission was to point the way to the coming of the Kingdom. The King—who happened to be his own cousin—had come, but as for the Kingdom? Unjustly and cruelly, John the Baptist is martyred before he gets to see the Kingdom come. 

It’s a long line of martyrs, isn’t it? Early in June, in the course of remembrances in the liturgical calendar, these names come before us: Justin Martyr (June 1), Blandina & the Martyrs of Lyons (June 2), the Martyrs of Uganda (June 3). Add big-enough-sinner-but-Jesus-loving George “Big Floyd” Floyd, victim of police violence in May of 2020. And only too recently, one of my doctoral students at the Robt. E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies, Emmanuel Bileya—one of the kindest, sweetest spirits God ever led into ministry—and his wife Juliana, martyred in Nigeria during a vicious ethnic war. 

These deaths are mystifying and cruel—seemingly pointless. If the world worked the way it should, everything would get done in its own time. But in the world as it is, things happen out of season—dancing when there should be mourning, killing when there should be healing, war when there should be peace, throwing stones when there should be gathering. And all along, the face of God seems sphinxlike, his purposes hidden: “That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.” 

If the horizon of Ecclesiastes were all there were, these words would be a counsel of despair—the Herods would win, the white cop (and his complicit partners) with a knee on the black man would win, the ethnic cleansers would win. But there is a broader horizon beyond the reach of Ecclesiastes’s Solomon—and there is no counsel of despair. 

Something that George Floyd’s Houston pastor, Patrick PT Ngwolo, said was amazing: “After Cain’s superiority and animosity drove him to kill Abel, Scripture tells us, ‘The Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground’ (Gen. 4:10). If you fast-forward 2,000 years, there’s another innocent sufferer whose blood spoke of better things than Abel’s. … Jesus’ blood says he can redeem us through these dark and perilous times.” 

One day, when the last drop of innocent blood has been shed, and the great reckoning takes place, we will find that not one has been wasted. “That” is the hidden thing “which is,” which “already has been; … and “which is to be.” 

All that has been taken,
It shall be restored.
This eternal anthem
For the Glory of the Lord.

• Twila Paris

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Pixabay

God's Good Timing - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 6/14/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 45; Ecclesiastes 2:16-26; Galatians 1:18–2:10; Matthew 13:53-58

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)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

Today is the Tuesday following Trinity Sunday. Given where Easter falls this year, our readings should have us in Proper 6 of the Daily Lectionary, but my teaching schedule with my friends at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies has caused me to scramble things a bit. This week, we are contemplating passages from Proper 4 — I want to give some attention to the early chapters of the Book of Ecclesiastes and of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Thanks for your flexibility. Next week we will be back on track with readings from the Daily Lectionary’s Proper 7. 

If death truly marks the end, and if death itself is a slide into nothingness, then everything before it is nothingness too—a kind of living death. Trying to live a life worth being remembered for? Pointless: “For there is no enduring remembrance of the wise or of fools, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten” (Ecclesiastes 2:16). Ambitious projects? (And Solomon’s were nothing if not ambitious, and lavish, from palaces to stables to, of course, God’s very house). It’ll all be left for people who didn’t toil for it. Again, pointless: “This also is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19). 

Solomon’s perspective is one of a life turned in on itself, and it’s not pretty. But at the end of this paragraph, in verses 24-26, Solomon gets a glimmer of insight. If you see God as the giver of life, it’s possible to receive food and drink as a gift, and even to find enjoyment in the work he gives you to do. If the goal is to please him and not self or posterity, it’s just possible that “wisdom and knowledge and joy” will come.

I linger over one observation from Paul’s letter to the Galatians: that is, that it takes him a decade and a half from his conversion before he puts pen to paper. 

Some things take time. It’s either seventeen years or fourteen years from Paul’s conversion and initial contact with the Jerusalem leaders of the church (scholars still debate the time frame) until he appears to them to lay out his understanding of his call. A lot of water has gone under the bridge: time in Arabia (whether in seclusion or under tutelage) and a decade of ministry in a church of mixed Jews and Gentiles in Syrian Antioch. 

When he does emerge for this consultation, it’s clear that four things have jelled for him. We can be grateful for them—and that he took the time to get them right. First, it is God’s sheer grace in Christ that saves—which is largely the burden of this letter. Second, it is the shape of God’s plan to bring Jews and Gentiles together as equal citizens in the Kingdom of God (Galatians 3:28). Third, it is his mission to pursue the Gentile-inclusion part of God’s plan—so much so, that he will risk alienating key Jerusalem leadership (Galatians 2:3-5, and tomorrow’s passage). Fourth, he is so eager for his fellow Jews to understand God’s reconciling love and power that he plans to raise support among his Gentile churches to support the impoverished Jewish church in Jerusalem: “They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor (i.e., the church in Jerusalem—a story for another day), which was actually what I was eager to do” (Galatians 2:10).

Let me commend to you two ways to pray for God’s good timing—even if it may seem slow to us—to show itself for you and for our world. 

In your own life, first, I pray you not feel like you are stuck in some sort of perpetual hovering pattern, just circling the airport, never landing. Go to him daily, ready to hear him say, “Wait on me,” or “Here we go!”

And when, second, you are frustrated by a world perennially at war, a protracted health crisis, or a society in a seemingly bottomless moral free fall, let me commend to you the Book of Common Prayer’s prayer “For the Human Family.”

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Adaptation, Pixabay

Life with Faith - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 6/13/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 41; Psalm 52; Ecclesiastes 2:1-15; Galatians 1:1-17; Matthew 13:44-52

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

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

Today is the Monday following Trinity Sunday. Given where Easter falls this year, our readings should have us in Proper 6 of the Daily Lectionary, but my teaching schedule with my friends at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies has caused me to scramble things a bit. This week, we are contemplating passages from Proper 4 — I want to give some attention to the early chapters of the Book of Ecclesiastes and of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Thanks for your flexibility. Next week we will be back on track with readings from the Daily Lectionary’s Proper 7. 

Ecclesiastes and life without faith. …and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. — Ecclesiastes 2:11. When you’re headed the wrong way on any journey—and especially the journey of life—the first thing you need is the realization that you’re headed the wrong way. As a whole, the book of Ecclesiastes pursues one dead end after another, driving us to a singular conclusion: all that matters is faith—not generic, fill-in-the-blank, to-whom-it-may-concern faith—but faith in a very specific God. This God is Israel’s Lord, the one who gave commandments to his people (that is, the five books of Moses), and who “will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). 

The value of Ecclesiastes doesn’t lie in telling us much of anything about what it is to know this God. The value of Ecclesiastes lies in telling us what it is not to know him, so that we know how much we need to know him. As a study in not knowing God, Ecclesiastes is a study in hell on earth.

Today’s lesson from Ecclesiastes is this: Hell is trying to find life in pleasure—the pleasure of laughter, the pleasure of wine, the pleasure of building houses and planting vineyards, the pleasure of controlling others’ lives, the pleasure of buying anything you want, the pleasure of sex-on-demand, even the pleasure of being known as the smartest person in the room. Pleasure doesn’t satisfy—it only demands more. It ends with boredom: “all was vanity and a chasing after wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:11). 

Galatians and life with faith. The Bible’s direct answer to Ecclesiastes’ despair is Paul’s paean to faith in his letter to the Galatians. God has not, in fact, left us to drown in our despair. He’s come down here himself in the person of his Son, “the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age.” Nor has God left it to us to figure it out on our own. He has sent apostles—and in this instance, Paul—“sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead”—to explain the good news to us. 

I pray you are able to make the most of the powerful juxtaposition of the early chapters of Ecclesiastes and Galatians—the one demonstrating the vanity and emptiness of life without true faith in a living God, and the other showing how to respond in faith to the wonder and fullness of new life granted through Jesus Christ. For his kingdom is, as today’s gospel says, “treasure in a hidden field”—really, it’s worth selling all you have to buy that field so you can have that treasure. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Pixabay

A Theology Worth Singing - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 6/10/2022

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days, while I teach with my friends at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies. In our Daily Office Devotions this week, we are consider several aspects of worship: corporate and personal. 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 next week.

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

“Take to the World”

Go in peace to love and to serve.
And let your ears ring long with what you have heard.
And may the bread on your tongue leave a trail of crumbs
to lead the hungry back to the place you are from.
Take to the world this love, this hope and faith.
And take to the world this rare, relentless grace.
And like the Three in One, know you must become
what you want to save ‘cause that’s still the way
He takes to the world.

Aaron Tate’s “Take to the World” (as performed by Derek Webb) is a profound post-communion song. It resonates with some of the best theological instincts of the ancient church. John of Damascus (8th century Syria) said that the Incarnation means that the Author of matter has taken on matter to redeem matter, the whole of the creation, beginning with us. Thus, worship involves bread and wine – not just words and songs. The 4th century Cappadocian theologians stressed that “what has not been assumed cannot be saved” – another way of saying “you must become what you want to save.” Praise be. That’s what God did for us in Christ. 

In practice what the early church did to reinforce its incarnational theology was three things: first, they took the Table to those who couldn’t make it to the Table. As Justin Martyr (2nd century, Rome) said: “Through the deacons (the bread and the wine) are sent to those who are absent.” Second, when celebrating Communion they took up offerings specifically designated for “the orphans and widows, and those who are in want because of sickness or for some other reason, and those who are in bonds, and the sojourning strangers.” Third, they taught believers to worship with their whole lives, including their wealth. Thus, John Chrysostom, the 4th-5th century preacher to the Emperor’s court in Constantinople, reminded believers that the very same Jesus who said, “This is my Body,” also said, “You saw me hungry and did not feed me,” and “In so far as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to me.”  

We only worship well when we keep the biblical view of the ancient church in mind – when we do take the Table to brothers and sisters who are sick, incapacitated, incarcerated; when we work with church leadership to have “second offerings” (some churches call them “deacon offerings,” usually post-communion) to provide focused help for the poor in our communities; when our corporate prayer includes all the needs of the world, especially the homeless, the lonely, the persecuted, those caught in slave trafficking; when worship leaders are first in line to volunteer for ministry projects outside the narrow confines of what we normally think of as worship; when worship teams do other ministry tasks together, from serving in homeless ministries to taking up hammers for Habitat for Humanity to participating in evangelism projects.  

“Take to the World” reminds us that ours is a theology truly worth singing, because it flows from the life of God, and folds us into the life of God. “Take to the World” sums up what we celebrate in the Lord’s Supper, and launches us into a sharing of God’s mission to bring the world to God’s Great Feast. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Wikimedia Commons

With Hands Stretched Out - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 6/9/2022

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days, while I teach with my friends at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies. In our Daily Office Devotions this week, we are consider several aspects of worship: corporate and personal. 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 next week.

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

Lifted up, with Hands Outstretched

Twice in John’s gospel, Jesus insists, “My time is not yet” (Jn 2:4; 7:30). It is only when “Greeks” approach Philip and say, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus,” that Jesus finally exclaims, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” explaining that that means he will lifted up from the earth (on the cross) and “I … will draw all people to myself” (Jn 12:21,23,32 NRSV). 

The image of Jesus being lifted up and thus drawing people to himself was a compelling one to Athanasius, 4th-century bishop of Alexandria. Athanasius pondered Jesus’ dying, lifted up “with hands stretched out”: 

[O]nly on upon the cross does one die with hands stretched out. Therefore it was fitting for the Lord to endure this, and to stretch out his hands, that with the one he might draw the ancient people and with the other those from the Gentiles, and join both together in himself (On the Incarnation 25). 

Athanasius himself lived in a place of hard intersection between hostile people. He persistently and stridently insisted that the church’s worship of God was only possible through a Jesus who was 100% divine and 100% human (as Shai Linne might put it: “Jesus both God and man, two hundred percent, yeah”). He did so to the frustration of those who thought Jesus would be more comprehensible – or marketable – if we thought of him as not quite 100% divine. As a result, during his 46 years as bishop in Alexandria, he experienced exile 5 times, for a total of 17 years. Throughout, he saw himself offering outstretched hands, in cruciform fashion, to his enemies and to the gospel’s enemies. He believed, in the end, that Christ’s hands were strong enough to reconcile us to God – and to one another. Happily, he lived long enough to see most of his own opponents reconciled. 

It’s not very romantic to stand in that place of intersection: to hold on to God with one hand and to resistant people with the other, or to hold on to one group of people with one hand and their opposites with another. 

Many of us live and minister in cruciform fashion. Missionaries live far from “home,” labor for years to master difficult languages, and take on uncomfortable customs, often only to build bridges of relationships for a harvest in the next generation. Musicians make hard choices about when to challenge their congregation’s narrow bandwidths, and when to set aside their own aesthetic for the sake of their congregation’s. Privileged people marginalize themselves for a Jesus who is hungry, thirsty, estranged, naked, sick, and imprisoned (Matt 25:35-36). Church leaders fight cynicism, but won’t abandon Christ’s Bride when they see her falling prey to theological confusion and post-biblical morality. May we know Christ’s sustaining power, hope, and love.

For the sake of us all, hardly a day passes when I do not pray this prayer, written by Episcopal bishop to the Philippines and Western New York, Charles Henry Brent (1862-1929), and no doubt inspired by John and Athanasius:

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen (Book of Common Prayer, p. 101).

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ikone_Athanasius_von_Alexandria.jpg

The Church is a "Sacred Mystery" - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 6/8/2022

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days, while I teach with my friends at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies. In our Daily Office Devotions this week, we are considering several aspects of worship: corporate and personal. 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 next week.

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

“Things Which had Grown Old”

I have become less impressed with my own prayers, and more reliant on the church’s. One that is sustaining me now is a prayer that is at least 1500 years old, but which seems to me fresher than tomorrow. It is a prayer that my church prays every Good Friday and at every ordination service: 

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: 
Look favorably on your whole Church,
that wonderful and sacred mystery;
by the effectual working of your providence,
carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation;
let the whole world see and know
that things which were cast down are being raised up,
and things which had grown old are being made new,
and that all things are being brought to their perfection
by him through whom all things were made,
your Son Jesus Christ our Lord;
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The church is a “sacred mystery.”

Sometime during the middle of the first millennium, this prayer appeared. After only 500 or so years of existence, the church had been through a lot – and must have seemed to many people to be tired, enfeebled, old, and ready to fade away. The early persecutions by hostile Roman emperors, the almost as fatal befriending of the church by a converted emperor, the battle over defining the oneness and threeness of deity and ditto the humanness and deity of Jesus, the disappointment that the adoption of the faith as “civil religion” failed to protect Roman society from invading armies, the emergence of a rift between Western and Eastern theological and liturgical sensibilities that was as much about “turf” as anything. 

Even so, through this anonymous prayer, our forebears acknowledged that the church wasn’t their invention, but God’s. That she was a Bride beloved of a Divine Groom. She is what the apostle Paul described as “a mystery” (Eph 5:32) planted in the world as a picture of Divine Love. Because she is God’s creation, not ours, our heresies haven’t killed her, nor have our schisms. Yes, it’s our responsibility to respond well to Jesus’s question: “When the Son of Man appears, will he find faith on the earth?” Nonetheless, He is so much at work among us that, one way or another, He will make sure the question is answered in the affirmative. 

We may be stressed, but God isn’t.

The human story is that God is working to make all things new. If history seems to be going the wrong way, we don’t have to worry that God has either forgotten, or lost his punch. The resurrection of his Son is his promise that all will one day rise – it can’t not happen. If we don’t see the church rising to the task to which she is called, it’s because we’re not looking hard enough. If the candle goes out here (say, Turkey after the rise of Islam, or Europe since the so-called Enlightenment), the light will get lit elsewhere (say, out of the waters of the Dniepre River way back when, or from Africa more recently). If the gospel becomes just another “product” in the US, it will become a transformative engine in Korea or China. 

God is in the business of reversing things.

At the very moment demons howled at Jesus on the cross, the earth shook with what the ancient church took to be the breaking of the power of death and hell and Satan himself. On the cross, Divine Justice and Mercy embraced – and the beginning of the renewal of all things set in. As Paul would write: “He brought life and immortality to light” (2Tim 1:10).  

“Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a god who knew the way out of the grave,” wrote G. K. Chesterton.

When turmoil reigned in the ancient church, God raised up an Augustine to articulate a philosophy of the City of God, a Gregory to teach the church a “new song,” a Cyril to contribute liturgical coherence. When medieval Christendom was sliding into decadence and either indifference or moralism, God called a Francis to rebuild a broken-down countryside church building – and Francis realized God meant to rebuild his whole Church through repentance and love and care for the poor. While the 20th century American church was selling its soul for “relevance” and market share and while the European church was shuttering cathedrals or selling them as skate parks or shopping malls, God was sending a nun to find Jesus in the slums of India. We have yet to see what miracles God will do through other Augustines, Gregories, Francises, and Teresas. 

Meanwhile, I’m grateful for words bigger than my own to ask God what I know He wants to – and surely will – do: raise up “things which were cast down” and renew “things which had become old.”

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Nicholas Roerich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Eucharist Means "Thanksgiving"- Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 6/7/2022

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office this week, while I teach with my friends at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies. 

In our Daily Office Devotions this week, we are considering several aspects of worship: corporate and personal. 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 next week.

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

“Be What You See; Receive What You Are”

The Table has many names because it does many things. Of late, I have come to understand why one of those names – Eucharist – means “Thanksgiving.”

Growing up “once born,” I was introduced at some point to “Communion” in church. But I was never sure with whom I was supposed to be communing. God was far off. His Son had died but a martyr’s death and had experienced a “resurrection,” as far as I could tell, only in his followers’ imaginations. Communion felt like rote religiosity to me. 

After I became “born again,” I frequented “The Lord’s Supper,” as a re-enactment of the meal on the eve of our Lord’s death, and “The Lord’s Table,” as a sharing in the banquet of the world’s true King. But I was often confused, because, for whatever reason, I got the feeling that this Lord was ready to give me an early death if I did not partake worthily. The Lord’s Supper often felt funereal, and his Table was scary and somber.  

Robert Webber, champion of worship renewal, helped me better understand the point of the Bible’s and the ancient church’s worship practices. Long story, but he helped me find communion in “Communion,” redemptive remembrance in the “Last Supper,” and grace-kissed reverence in the “Lord’s Table.” He also noted that the most common way that the early church spoke of the Table was as “Eucharist,” in view of Jesus’ “giving thanks” first over loaves and fishes (Matt 15:36; John 6:11,23), and then over the Bread and the Cup (Luke 22:17; 1Co 11:24). When I was first invited to help distribute bread at a Eucharist (in which people came forward to receive, instead of remaining in their seats), I noticed how many people came with smiles on their faces. They seemed, well, grateful. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been, but cheerful gratitude at the Table was a new notion for me. 

A sermon by Augustine, the great 5th century North African bishop, has helped me understand the smiles. 

In his Sermon No. 272, “On the Eucharist,” Augustine celebrates who Christ is, what he has done, and where he is now as Ascended Lord. Then he takes up the question of how this bread and wine down here can connect us to who he is up there. He simply asserts: in these elements, “one thing is seen, while another is grasped.”

The Mystery of My Own Self

The elements on the Table physically represent Christ’s Body in such a way that “what is grasped bears spiritual fruit.” Augustine reminds us that Paul has said: “You are the body of Christ, member for member” (1Co 12:27). Thus, continues Augustine, 

it is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord’s table! It is your own mystery that you are receiving! You are saying “Amen” to what you are: your response is a personal signature, affirming your faith. When you hear “The body of Christ,” you reply “Amen.” Be a member of Christ’s body, then, so that your “Amen” may ring true!

To paraphrase, here at this Table you say “Yes!” to yourself, “Yes” to who you are in Christ, “Yes” to the people to whom he has made you to belong!

Augustine asks believers to compare themselves to the loaf on the Table. 

Remember: bread doesn’t come from a single grain, but from many. When you received exorcism, you were “ground.” When you were baptized, you were “leavened.” When you received the fire of the Holy Spirit, you were “baked.” Be what you see; receive what you are.

Because of Christ, I am no longer alone. Because of Christ, I am no longer subject, to borrow the language of the Book of Common Prayer, to “Satan and all the forces of wickedness that rebel against God.” Christ has breathed life into me, so my life has “rise” or bouyancy to it. The Holy Spirit has warmed what was cold and desolate in me. At Eucharist, I receive back the mystery of who I am. 

The Mystery of Our Unity

Of the bread, Augustine has said: “Understand and rejoice: unity, truth, faithfulness, love.” He asks us to ponder the cup:

Remember, friends, how wine is made. Individual grapes hang together in a bunch, but the juice from them all is mingled to become a single brew. This is the image chosen by Christ our Lord to show how, at his own table, the mystery of our unity and peace is solemnly consecrated.

Here, indeed, is why the early church could – as can we! – bring smiles to the Table. For at a Table of Thanksgiving/Eucharist we, who through grace belong to Christ and to one another, may “give God our sincere and deepest gratitude, and, as far as human weakness will permit, … turn to the Lord with pure hearts.” The Eucharistic Table assures us together that “God’s power will drive the Evil One from our acts and thoughts; it will deepen our faith, govern our minds, grant us holy thoughts, and lead us, finally, to share the divine happiness through God’s own son Jesus Christ. Amen!”

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: "257/365 Thanksgiving at my church" by rennes_i is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

A Place to Sanctify - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 6/6/2022

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings this week, while I teach with my friends at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies. In our Daily Office Devotions, we’ll consider several aspects of worship: corporate and personal. 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 next week.

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

“COLOR ADDED”

Some of us worship in a building that is an unadorned, multimedia-accommodating “box” that we are able to treat as a canvas for telling God’s story. We can fill it with lights and sights and sounds any way we wish, any time we wish. I have spent many of my ministry years in such a setting. It’s a delight to play with visual and aural textures, and to take on the challenge of imagining anew the Christian story week after week. 

Some of us worship in a building that is clearly and intentionally designed for “church.” I am spending the present phase of my ministry in this sort of setting: a cathedral of Gothic Revival design. Stained glass panels encompass the worship space with a rehearsal of the biblical story. An altar is both the visual and liturgical focal point of the room. Pulpit to the side, but elevated and extending out toward the congregation. Pipe organ. Pews with kneelers. A lingering scent of incense. I am learning that fixed features can bring their own delight. 

Permanence…

The New Testament portrays the Church as something that is both dynamic and changing, on the one hand, and solid and immovable, on the other. To be sure, the Church is made up of “living stones,” and is constantly growing (1Pt 2:5; Eph 2:21). At the same time, Christ’s Church is also “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1Tim 3:16). It’s as though we need “wings to fly” and “feet firmly planted.” Opposites? No, not really. 

I am appreciating the way the building I’m in communicates the solidity of our faith. Twelve massive pillars – each bearing the shield of one of the 12 apostles – surround us as we worship. Stained glass panels depict Jesus’ life and ministry on the lower level, and Old and New Testaments saints on the upper level. It’s marvelous to be surrounded by such a great “cloud of witnesses.” 

… But Not Perfection

No other entity on earth will last beyond the Lord’s return – no government, no economy, no relationship – only Christ and his Bride, the Church. Nor, even in this age, it seems to me, is there any more compelling an argument to be made for the truth of the faith than the existence of the Church itself. As Cardinal Ratzinger (before becoming Pope Benedict XVI) offered: “The only really effective apologia for Christianity comes down to two arguments, namely, the saints the Church has produced and the art which has grown in her womb.”

What speaks so profoundly about the Church’s existence is that we are a community of people who are forgiven and know it. Flawed and owning it. Loved in spite of ourselves, thus under compulsion to love in response. 

A Mystery

Early in my days at the cathedral after a worship service, I was surveying the Old and New Testament figures portrayed in the stained glass panels around the top of the building. It was no small help that the names of the saints were part of each panel. But there was one panel that nearly stumped me. It was a panel of Moses, but from my vantage point below, it looked like the name “Moses” was upside down and backwards, and indeed it was.

A number of people I asked had the impression it had been done that way on purpose to “remind generations that only God is perfect.” Anne Michels, the Cathedral Archivist, had heard that account for years, and called Willet Studios in Philadelphia to confirm the story. (They created our stained glass … as well as the stained glass in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.) According to Willet Studios, when the Moses stained glass was installed in the late 1980s, the panel with his name was inserted upside down by accident. The letters (as you can see) are stylized. Nobody seemed to notice the mistake until the work was finished. At that point, they were left alone. And as such, they stood as a reminder that only God is perfect, or in Anne Michels’ words, “they are for us a message of the futility of works. If we try to work our way to perfection, we’ll never get there.”

The mistake was allowed to stand until we had it corrected in 2020. Whenever I look up at Moses, I am reminded, as a friend put it to me, that “the most beautiful of our creations this side of glory are still fallen creations. We are forgiven people, living in hope.” People who talk that way let me know I am where I need to be. Those are the kind of lives that commend the faith. This is the kind of art that grows – by a combination of inspired purpose and providential accident – in the womb of the church. 

Symbolic East … 

Early Christians were known for praying facing the east. That’s because, notes Gregory of Nyssa (central Asia Minor, 4th century), East is the birthplace of humankind and the earthly garden of paradise. As Thomas Aquinas (Italy, 13th century) was later to observe: East is the place of our Lord – his life and death, and the direction from which he will come on judgment day. 

Jesus’ incarnation, death, and resurrection is the dawn of new creation. That’s what John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, anticipated when he sang about “the rising Sun” visiting us (Luke 1:78 NJB – the term is anatolē, lit., “east,” a term that was understood either to refer to the morning star, Venus, or to the rising sun itself). That’s what early Christians recalled when they noticed that the Greek OT had translated the messianic promise of a “Branch” (Heb. tsemaḥ) as “Dawn” (NET – again, anatolē; Zech 3:8; 6:12; Jer 23:5).

Accordingly, when Christians began building church buildings, they put them on an east-west axis when they could – the door of entry to the west, and the pulpit and Table to the east. We came from Paradise … then lost Paradise through a bad exchange and are being reoriented to Paradise through our Second Adam’s mission of love to regain his Bride. That cosmology – that symbolic shaping of our world – alone gives us our bearings in a world that has no bearings. 

To reinforce that symbolic reshaping of space, my church is laid out on an east-west axis – except for this: it’s backwards. So the architectural plans show literal east as “Symbolic West” and literal west as “Symbolic East.” I love that! Getting true directionality is clearly not about literalism. That means it doesn’t especially matter whether you have stained glass or screens, pews or cafeteria chairs, an organ or a band, you can point “east,” as long as you know what you are looking for.

… With “Color Added”

I’ve served urban and suburban churches, and churches in university towns and in beach towns. I’ve appreciated the way each has acknowledged and embraced the place of its setting. Orlando, Florida, was a small town in the 1920s when the cathedral was built. Back then Central Florida was awash in citrus groves, not tourist attractions. To honor its city’s roots and to help to tell its “story,” the cathedral frames one of the stained glass panels – one that places Jesus among his disciples – with stained glass oranges. In letters barely large enough to see, one of the oranges bears the characteristic citrus industry stamp: “color added.” 

“There are no unsacred places,” offers Wendell Berry, “there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” The Lord has given each of us a place to sanctify. Whether with technology that is dazzling and electronic or that is simple and acoustic, whether across a canvas that constantly evolves or within a fixed environment that stolidly invites you to discover its nuances, may we embrace, enhance, and redeem local “color.”

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+