A Vision of Creation Restored - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 3/11/2024 •
Monday of 4 Lent, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89; Genesis 49:1–28; 1 Corinthians 10:14–11:1; Mark 7:24–37 

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

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

Today’s passage in Genesis, comprised of Jacob’s words to his sons, is our next-to-next-to-last reading in that book before we turn to Exodus. The Book of Genesis is a book of “beginnings”: the beginning of creation, the beginning of the rule of sin and death, and the beginning of God’s campaign to restore creation. Here near the end of the book, Jacob captures the heart of the book.   

To Reuben, Simeon, and Levi: dead ends to redemption. Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn son, has violated Bilhah, one of Jacob’s wives: “You went up to your father’s bed; then you defiled it” (Genesis 49:4b; see 35:22). In doing so, Reuben shows himself not to be what the firstborn should be: preeminent in dignity and power (Genesis 49:3). Rather, he is ungovernable, “uncontrolled as water” (Genesis 49:4a).  

Simeon and Levi purport to bring to justice those who have violated their sister Dinah (Genesis 34:25–30). But they do so with self-willed, anarchic, viciousness. Their way is not God’s way: “Let my soul not enter into their council … Cursed be…their wrath, for it is cruel” (Genesis 49:6a,7ab).  

Genesis is an account of the beginning of the rule of sin and death. Brutality and violence manifested themselves in family and home life immediately after the Fall of Adam and Eve: to wit, Cain’s murder of his brother Abel. Reuben, Simeon, and Levi illustrate hell’s hold on humans. And Genesis’s message to us in Jacob’s words to these three sons is twofold: 1) the family through which redemption comes needs redemption as much as anybody else; and 2) God will not solve the problem of the Fall through entitlement and pride like Simeon’s, nor will He reverse the curse through explosive, vindictive rage like Simeon’s and Levi’s.   

To Judah: a king will come. Hope, however, does lie in the line of Judah. Somehow, as a gift of God’s profound grace, Jacob gets a threefold vision of how God will bring redemption through this son. First, Jacob has given him a name that means “Praise,” a fact that Jacob underscores when he says Judah’s brothers will “praise” him (Genesis 49:8 — yehudah comes from yadah). Worship is Israel’s chief gift to the world. When, in primordial history, through Cain the rest of the human race was given gifts of city-building and animal husbandry and manufacturing and music-making, through Seth the people of promise were given one gift, and one gift alone: “to invoke the name of Yahweh” (Genesis 4:16–26 JB). Through Israel, and specifically through the line of Judah, humanity will learn how praise of Yahweh gives value to every other aspect of life.  

Second, Jacob calls Judah a “lion’s whelp,” and compares him to a crouching lion, “Like the king of beasts—who dare rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah” (Genesis 49:9,10). In Israel’s history, it is King David who embodies the hope engendered by Jacob’s words to Judah. The mighty “lion of Judah” becomes a theme of Jewish art and the basis of messianic expectation. The Book of Revelation identifies Jesus Christ as the great fulfillment of these words: “See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so he can open the scroll of the seven seals…” (Revelation 5:5).  

Third, Jacob dimly perceives a mystery surrounding the identity of the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Older, more wooden, translations respect this mystery when they translate Genesis 49:10c, “…until Shiloh comes.” The term is really quite ambiguous — it could be a place, it could mean tribute, it could be a veiled reference to the Messiah as “Sent One.”  

I’d prefer to leave the question of the interpretation of the term open. I think it may be here as a reminder that the Old Testament is a book filled with hints and shadows, adumbrations and whispers, figures and mysteries of marvelous and wonderful things to come. After all, when in the Book of Revelation John is permitted to see that Jesus is the great Lion of Judah, he also sees that he is simultaneously “a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered,” and therefore worthy both to open the scrolls and “to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:6,12).  

Jacob’s son Judah will bequeath us a son —a Son like no other, a Son to teach the world to praise Yahweh, a Son to rule as King, and a Son to give his life a ransom for many.  

To Joseph: a vision of creation restored. A promise of the re-Edenization of the world. Jacob’s words to Joseph climax in the vision of blessing flowing through Abraham’s line to all of creation, bringing in return the blessing of heaven above, of the deep that lies beneath, of the breasts and the womb, of fathers and ancestors, of everlasting hills. A vision of all creation released from the forces of death and decay and destruction and dissolution.  

At its heart, Genesis is the story of the beginning of the end of the darkness that fell upon Eden. May this Lenten season prepare us to own the darkness of sin that led our Savior to his cruel cross, that we may rejoice anew in the promise of a new day that his resurrection on Easter Day brings.  

Be blessed this day.  

Reggie Kidd+

A Rich Heritage of Spiritual Pilgrimage - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 3/8/2024 •
Friday of 3 Lent, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; Genesis 47:1–26; 1 Corinthians 9:16–27; Mark 6:47–56 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday of the third week of Lent, as we prepare for Holy Week.   

As we near the end of Genesis and thus approach the close of Jacob’s life, it’s wonderful to see three aspects of his self-understanding that have matured over time: his capacity to bless, his understanding of himself as a pilgrim, and his perspective on suffering.   

Jacob blesses. When Jacob finally appears before Pharaoh, he does for the Egyptian king what Yahweh told Abraham he and his progeny would do for nations: “…and Jacob blessed Pharaoh…”  (Genesis 47:7c; compare Genesis 12). And then once again at the end of their interview, “Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from the presence of Pharaoh” (Genesis 47:10). Blessings fore and aft. Blessings coming and going. The power and the authority to bring a good and kind and beneficent word from God to the world — that is the special mission of Abraham and his children.  

In fact, through Joseph’s able administration during the famine, Pharaoh becomes lord over all the property of Egypt, and the people of Egypt proclaim Joseph “Savior” (we can acknowledge that the standard of justice employed for famine relief is Egyptian, not Hebrew and biblical). For a long time, the Israelites prosper and flourish in their Egyptian home away from home.  

Nor is the irony to be missed that the mutual blessing and prosperity that transpire between Egyptians and Israelites here at the end of Genesis contrasts with the situation 400 years later at the beginning of Exodus, when another Pharaoh “who knew not Joseph” curses Israel and is himself cursed as a result.  

Jacob is a pilgrim. “The years of my pilgrimage….” (Genesis 47:9b KJV; and see Deuteronomy 26:5). For all his heart-investment in his family and in the land of Canaan, Jacob, along with his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham, seek more than earthly goals. Their life-journey has as its aim, “the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:9–10). They are on a purposeful journey through life.  

Sojourning creates a powerful impact on Israelites’ sensibilities. The mindset carries over to all who call themselves sons and daughters of Abraham. It is nicely captured in the hidden king Aragorn’s poem from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring:  

All that is gold does not glitter, 
Not all those who wander are lost; 
The old that is strong does not wither, 
Deep roots are not reached by the frost. 

From the ashes a fire shall be woken, 
A light from the shadows shall spring; 
Renewed shall be blade that was broken, 
The crownless again shall be king. 

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring 

Jacob stands near the fountainhead of a rich spiritual heritage of pilgrimage. As a young man, Vincent Van Gogh aspired to the Christian ministry. One sermon from the days of that quest has been preserved for us. Vincent closes his sermon this way: “And when each of us goes back to the daily things and daily duties let us not forget that things are not what they seem, that God by the things of daily life teacheth us higher things, that our life is a pilgrim’s progress, and that we are strangers on the earth, but that we have a God and father who preserveth strangers, – and that we are all brethren.” 

Jacob understands suffering. “…few and hard have been the years of my life… (Genesis 47:9d). As Jacob notes, the pilgrim’s life is not easy. Still, understanding that “not all those who wander are lost” gives God’s pilgrim-people resilience in the face of hardship.  

It is a theme that animates Paul’s writing, and that is especially heightened in his letters to the self-satisfied Corinthians. For the pilgrim Van Gogh, 2 Corinthians 6:10 was especially captivating and motivating: “…as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.” In the sermon we cited above, Vincent expands on this verse: “And the pilgrim goes on sorrowful yet always rejoicing — sorrowful because it is so far off and the road so long. Hopeful as he looks up to the eternal city far away, resplendent in the evening glow….”  

I pray that like Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and his wives and sons, we may receive God’s blessing in such a way that we become a blessing to those around us. And may we take our place alongside Vincent and generations of saints as pilgrims on the way. May we always, always have a sober yet hopeful perspective on the trials that come with the journey toward the “city that has foundations, whose builder and architect is God.” 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

An Island of Peace - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 3/7/2024 •
Thursday of 3 Lent, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 83; Genesis 46:1–7,28–34; 1 Corinthians 9:1–15; Mark 6:30–46 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This is Thursday of the third week of Lent, as we prepare for Holy Week.  

In Genesis 46, seventy souls go down to Egypt. They go with Yahweh’s blessing. They will come up from there a mighty nation. When, in Mark 6, Jesus feeds 5,000 and recovers 12 baskets of leftovers, he signals that Yahweh’s great nation is being reconstituted around him, and around the meal where he “takes” bread, “blesses” it, “breaks” it, and “gives” it.  

Jesus is calm in the storm. All four gospel writers recount the feeding of the 5,000, but one subtle feature of Mark’s account stands out. Jesus is an island of calm and rest in a sea of frenetic activity. Mark tells us that the disciples have just returned from a mission in which they have spent themselves teaching and exercising “authority over the unclean spirits” (Mark 6:13b). When the apostles, whom he has sent out in pairs, come back together, they gather around him and start to tell “him all that they had done and taught” (Mark 6:30). Imagine the buzz and excitement in that meeting!  

While all this energy is swirling around, Jesus says, “‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat” (Mark 6:31). Even then, notes Mark, while they are on their way to a deserted place for a retreat, “many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them” (Mark 6:33). Jesus and the disciples are sailing across Lake Gennesaret, meanwhile a crowd is racing along the shoreline to beat them to their destination.  

Jesus desires rest for his disciples, but his compassion for “sheep without a shepherd” prompts him to teach the crowd that has run ahead of them “many things.” The teaching runs so long that the day is gone, and the disciples are at wits’ end as to what to do with the multitude. Everybody around Jesus is spinning out of control, and circumstances suggest crisis mode as well. They are done! “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away…” — Mark 7:35b.  

I sense such calm in his instructions to bless and distribute the five loaves and two fishes. An island of peace in the storm, he provides the meal the people need, and more: “And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish” (Mark 7:42–43).  

In turbulent times like ours, it’s good to be reminded of the tranquility of spirit with which our Savior met, and continues to meet, every contingency. He met, and he meets, every emergency with equilibrium. He can make two loaves and five fishes feed 5,000, and he can provide exhausted souls the energy to keep putting out. If all that is true, we can pray that he will make tyrants tremble, turn fools from their folly, raise up righteous people to protect the innocent, and enable fainting hearts to find courage.  

Collect for Peace: Almighty God, kindle, we pray, in every heart the true love of peace, and guide with your wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth, that in tranquillity your dominion may increase until the earth is filled with the knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, p. 258).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Redemption, Not Recrimination - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 3/6/2024 •
Wednesday of 3 Lent, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:97–120; Genesis 45:16–28; 1 Corinthians 8:1–13; Mark 6:13–29 

For thoughts on 1 Corinthians 8:1–13 from 9/29/2021, see  “Love vs. Knowledge” 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Wednesday of the third week of Lent, as we prepare for Holy Week. We are in Year 2 of the Daily Office Lectionary. 

Two perceptive quotes on Genesis 45 by commentator Derek Kidner guide my meditations this morning. First, Jacob’s bringing his family from Israel to Egypt marks “a turning point…, long foretold (15:13–16): the beginning of a phase of isolation…, and of eventual bondage and deliverance which would produce a people that for ever after knew itself redeemed as well as called.” *  

Redeemed as well as called. “[A] a people that for ever knew itself redeemed as well as called,” notes Kidner. That’s really quite a thought. Israel’s rescue from Egypt, of course, is a rescue from more than physical oppressors. It’s redemption from the Angel of Death that would have taken Israelite firstborn as well as Egyptian, save for the shed blood of the Passover lambs. It’s redemption through waters that would have drowned Israelites as well as Egyptians. It’s redemption by manna graciously falling from the skies despite the people’s grumbling the complaining. It’s redemption under the leadership of the Glory Cloud despite constant whining about how great it would be to turn around and go back!  

Of course, it’s grace enough to be created in the first place and called in innocence into relationship with the Creator. But grace goes to an entirely different level when you have descended into disgrace and you have to be recreated because you deserve nothing but judgment.  

That’s the story of the Bible. Theologians of the church even found themselves giving thanks to God for “the happy fall” (felix culpa) that made redemption necessary. We love God more, so the suggestion goes, more desperately, more passionately, more deeply because, in Christ, we know what it is to be “wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored” (BCP, p. 214).  

Image: Adaptation, Pixabay image 

No need for recrimination. Second, Kidner adds an intriguing remark about Genesis 45:24, which says, “Then he sent his brothers on their way, and as they were leaving he said to them, ‘Do not quarrel along the way.’” * Kidner comments: “Joseph’s parting shot was realistic, for the ancient crime was now bound to come to light before their father, and mutual accusations were likely to proliferate (cf. 42:22).”  

Indeed, it’s not difficult to imagine Jacob’s reaction to finding out the son he thought he had lost is in Egypt. Elation at first, of course. But then the question: What in the world is he doing down there? How did he get there? The whole story is going to come out, and it’s not likely to be a pretty picture. Joseph anticipates the recriminations and says, “Let it go.”  

In this season of Lent it’s good to be reminded how important it is not to carry grudges. Grievances can embitter us and cripple us relationally. Lent is a good time to seek reconciliation with God and with one another. Jesus walked the Via Dolorosa to take all our estrangement and woundedness into himself, to take it with him into the tomb, and to leave it there for good. It’s good for us consciously and freely to give it to him and bid it a fond and final farewell.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

* Derek Kidner, Genesis, p. 208.  

God’s Guiding Hand - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 3/5/2024 •
Tuesday of 3 Lent, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 78; Genesis 45:1–15; 1 Corinthians 7:32–40; Mark 6:1–13 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This is Tuesday of the third week of Lent, as we prepare for Holy Week, and we are in Year 2 of the Daily Office Lectionary.   

The very heart of biblical faith lies in Joseph’s response to his brothers: “It was not you who sent me here, but God….” 

Joseph’s confidence in God’s guiding hand. Joseph has all along sensed that God was preserving him and protecting him. Joseph knows a God who brings about good despite and even through all the evil thrust upon him. All of it — being attacked and sold by these very brothers, being taken as a slave into Egypt, being falsely accused by Pharaoh’s wife, and being forgotten by Pharaoh’s cupbearer — all of it Joseph understood to be firmly in the grip of a higher hand that was working a larger purpose toward a good end. That end was good for Joseph himself, good for those he cared about, good for the whole world. He assures his brothers: “So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt” (Genesis 45:8).  

Joseph’s heart of compassion. It’s easy to think that believing in God’s benevolent control of all things, including evil, leaves one with a cold, calculating determinism. As though people’s choices don’t matter, and as though people’s hurts along the way don’t matter either. As though “happy endings” come out of a divinely preprogrammed “Goodness” dispenser. But that’s not the case at all. Ours is not an unfeeling God, and he has made us to feel with feelings he has given us. Joseph is emotionally engaged with what’s happening around him.  

In today’s reading Joseph has carefully orchestrated things in such a way as to give his brothers a chance to recognize their sin and be transformed by grace.  Beholding a breakthrough on that front releases a flood of tears. When he sees his brother Judah’s willingness to exchange his own freedom for their youngest brother Benjamin, “Joseph could no longer control himself …  he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it … Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept … And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them…” (Genesis 45:1,2,14,15).  

Image: Adaptation, Pixabay image 

The nimbleness of a redeemed person’s spirit is that they can be stricken with grief over their own sufferings and failings and over the sufferings and failings of others — and at the same time confident that God has the capacity and the intent to turn the worst evil into good. The God of the Bible creates beauty out of ugliness, peace out of strife, and order out of chaos.  

Scripture is filled with the understanding that God can use evil to effect his own good purposes. Fearlessly, the formerly craven Peter proclaims to the Sanhedrin that God had raised from the dead the one they had crucified: the stone the builder had rejected has become the cornerstone. The ultimate evil-into-good, of course, is the prayer recited by  the Jerusalem church after Peter and John are released from prison:  

“Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and everything in them, it is you who said by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor David, your servant:  

‘Why did the Gentiles rage, 
    and the peoples imagine vain things? 
The kings of the earth took their stand, 
    and the rulers have gathered together 
        against the Lord and against his Messiah.’ 

For in this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:24b–30; citing Psalm 2:1–2).  

God brought the greatest good (the salvation of the world) out of the greatest evil (the unjust crucifixion of his own Son). There’s no good thing he cannot accomplish, today, or in the future. And he promises that there will be not one iota of evil that will prevail on the last day. Whether it’s “turn[ing] the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents … and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous” (Malachi 4:6; Luke 1:16b), or whether it’s calling off the dogs of war or breathing godliness back into an apostate culture or taming deadly disease or addressing debilitating poverty and perverse racial and ethnic enmity—none of it is beyond him.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Great Divorce - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 3/4/2024 •
Monday of 3 Lent, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 80; Genesis 44:18–34; 1 Corinthians 7:25–31; Mark 5:21–43 

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

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

Today’s readings offer an intriguing juxtaposition of passages about familial love. In Genesis 44, Jacob’s “life is bound up in the boy’s life,” so much so that if something were to happen to Benjamin (Jacob’s youngest son), Simeon claims, it would kill their father (Genesis 44:30–31). In Mark 5, Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, is so anxious about his daughter’s health, he seeks out Jesus, throws himself at his feet, and repeatedly begs Jesus to come and help her.  

Familial love is powerful and good. The 5th Commandment concerns the parent-child bond, the 7th Commandment concerns marital faithfulness, and the 10th commandment assures that marital faithfulness is as much about heart as about body. God blesses the parental and marital ties that bind. Paul lists “lack of natural (i.e., familial) affection” (astorgos) as one characteristic of universal sin and a special sign of end-times wickedness (Romans 1:31 2 Timothy 3:3).  

At the same time, Jesus challenges any claim that familial ties are more important than love for him: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me…and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” and “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Matthew 10:37; 19:12c; Luke 14:26–27).  

Paul echoes Jesus when, in 1 Corinthians, he urges Corinthians not to put aspirations for marriage and family life ahead of priorities about life with God. There are important questions about, say, whether or not to get married (and take on all the attendant responsibilities), or whether to remarry if you’ve been divorced or widowed. But Paul wants to make sure we put family-life questions in their place. As pointers to, and supports for, God’s love, those relationships are precious. As substitutes for, and blocks against, God’s love, those relationships are sinful. Family life is penultimate. Life with God is ultimate.  

Image: Adaptation, Pixabay 

In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis presents a parable about an imaginary bus trip some inhabitants from hell make to the outskirts of paradise: 

A female ghost (whose name we never learn) is furious that Heaven will not give to her Robert, the husband she had sent to an early grave through her obsessive pushiness. On earth, Robert had been no more than a project for her and a means to her social ambitions. And she cannot imagine an afterlife in which he could be happy apart from her efforts to improve him: “Please, please! I’m so miserable. I must have someone to—to do things to.” Like “a dying candle flame,” she simply snaps, disappearing into a nothingness as empty as her earthly existence.  

In another scene, one of Heaven’s hosts informs Pam, the overbearing and controlling mother of Michael, that she is trapped in the hell of “your merely instinctive love for your child (tigresses share that, you know!).” God, continues Heaven’s host, wanted to turn that tigress-love “into something better. He wanted you to love Michael as He understands love. You cannot love a fellow-creature fully till you love God.”  

Pam cannot understand that without love of God, a mother’s love can be “uncontrolled and fierce and monomaniac.” It can become evil, a fact that cannot be hidden under the veil of a claim that “Mother-love” is “the highest and holiest feeling in human nature.” For, Lewis explains, “no natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves. They are all holy when God’s hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods.”  

In Christ, you see, all relationships are redeemable. Without him, all are subject to demonic possession. In Lent, may we renounce all idolatries, including ones that are relational. May we embrace lives of surrender — surrender of ourselves to our Sovereign and Lord, and surrender of our loved ones to His care and oversight.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, chapters 10 and 11.  

Your So-Called Rights - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 3/1/2024 •
Friday of 2 Lent, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 69; Genesis 43:1–15; 1 Corinthians 7:1–9; Mark 4:35–41  

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday of the second week of Lent, as we prepare for Holy Week.   

The gift of celibacy. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul commends single celibacy like his own as a mode of living for the sake of Kingdom-service and devotion to the Lord. See 1 Corinthians 7:32–35): “The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord….” If one can receive the call to celibacy as a gift (Gk, charisma, 1 Corinthians 7:7b), singleness offers freedom from the obligations of domestic life.  

With its extra-biblical demand that clergy remain unmarried, Catholicism has overplayed aspects of what Paul calls “counsel” rather than “demand.”  (“I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that” — 1 Corinthians 7:7.) By the same token, with its championing of “traditional” family life for virtually everybody, Protestantism has underplayed Paul’s godly advice. Seldom do I meet Protestants who choose singleness and celibacy for the sake of a life of ministry. It’s something to think about. To those whom God gives the charism of celibacy, the surrender of their sexuality directly to the Lord is their “gift” to him. And that is a sacred thing.  

The limitations of “Just say No!” A cursory reading of Paul’s permission to marry regards Paul as seeing marriage as little more than a solution to lust: “better to marry than to burn (with lust, understood)” (1 Corinthians 7:9b). To leave it there, however, is to do injustice to Paul’s advice. 

Marriage alone does not tame that lust. Nor does it insulate relationally needy hearts from creating a dream world in which an imaginary perfect partner listens all the time, picks up their socks, and never has a bad day.  

The value of “Just do it!” Thus, it is a wonderful thing that Paul complements the negative aspect of his teaching with the positive. Yesterday we saw him champion sexual propriety for the sake of love for Christ, union with Christ, and the glory of God. Today we find him saluting the way a man and a woman can minister to one another.  

Image: Pixabay

The Corinthians are a congregation of people utterly concerned with securing their perceived rights. They take each other to court. They argue about whether they have the right to eat meat from the marketplace. They want Paul to receive financial support from them so they can put him under obligation to them.  

Paul is working hard to get them to understand that the Christian life is not about claiming your rights. It is about surrendering them. We’re all called more to give love than to get love. What Paul wants the Corinthians to understand about marriage is that this is a special relationship in which two precious bearers of God’s image are entrusted as stewards of each other’s needs and desires. That’s the point of Paul’s instruction about relations between a husband and a wife:  

“The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife” (1 Corinthians 7:4 NIV). The passage is not a warrant for either side to pressure the other. The passage invites — indeed requires — each to ask the other, “What do you desire and need from me: a listening ear? doing the dishes? physical comfort?”   

Likewise, Paul builds into marriage the prospect of a mutual granting of permission for periods of abstinence. Paul says, “Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Corinthians 7:5 NIV). As we saw above, the call for each spouse to surrender “authority” over their body is no grounds for the other to make selfish demands. Neither, as Paul cautions here in verse 5, does the proviso of periods of abstinence warrant a kind of blackmail or deprivation of physical intimacy. Rather, Paul leaves breathing space for mutual spiritual reflection and growth.  

Paul genuinely believes the power of the gospel and the example of the One who was rich but became poor for our sakes (2 Corinthians 8:9) can make a couple care more about each other’s needs and desires than about their own. Within marriage, cherishing one another in intimacy is a profound way we contribute to each other’s growth in Christ. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Negative Plus Positive - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 2/29/2024 •
Thursday of 2 Lent, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 71; Genesis 42:29–38; 1 Corinthians 6:12–20; Mark 4:21–34 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This is Thursday of the second week of Lent.  

Negative Plus Positive  

I perform better when I receive positive coaching rather than negative.  

In basketball defense, I respond better to, “Stay on your toes,” than to, “Don’t play on your heels.”  

For hitting a baseball, “See the ball, hit the ball,” produces better results than, “Don’t strike out!”  

In Japanese swordsmanship, “Throw the tip of the sword like you were casting a fishing rod,” works, while, “Don’t try to muscle your cut,” doesn’t.   

When it comes to the ethical life, too, I’m more, “Just do it!” than “Just say no!” 

“Just say No!” It’s fascinating to watch Paul offer instruction that is both positive and negative. His negative instruction for sexuality is: “The body is not for fornication…” and “Shun fornication” (1 Corinthians 6:13c,18a). He means: Don’t have sex outside of marriage. It’s his way of saying, “Just say no!”  

However, trying to “just say no!” can be as frustrating as trying not to play on my heels, trying not to be afraid to swing, and trying not to muscle my cut. It’s not that the “Don’t” instruction is wrong. It’s that I’m able to respond better to the vision offered by the positive coaching. Just trying not to do the wrong thing isn’t the same as doing the right thing. That approach can so tighten you up that you end up doing the opposite of what you want to do. The person you are guarding is past you before you realize it, the umpire is calling “Strike!” while you’re still worrying about your fear of missing the ball, and your sword blade weakly “thunks” the target because thinking about not muscling your cut has made you shorten your stroke … and you muscle it even harder.  

Image:  Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. 

When all you’re doing is trying to just say no!, you are liable to wind up in places you regret later. You’re liable to find yourself grumbling Paul’s words, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Romans 7:19). Often, the harder you just try to resist temptation, the more tempting temptation is!  

“Just do it!” Now, if “Just say no!” were all that Paul said, it should absolutely be sufficient. However, I am grateful that Paul also offers several positive considerations, several points on the ethical “Just do it!”side of the equation. 

He continues, “…but [the body is] for the Lord, and the Lord [is] for the body” (1 Corinthians 6:13d). Just focusing on what we are not supposed to do with our bodies leads many people to think that the body is evil. That way of thinking leads them either to decide that what they do sexually is irrelevant to their spiritual life, or that they should abuse and punish their bodies (sometimes through sex). Instead, Paul wants us to understand that our bodies are so valuable that Christ gave his body to raise our body up and reconstitute it for an indestructible, everlasting existence: “God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power” (1 Corinthians 7:14). The Lord is not against our bodies, he is for them.  

… you were bought with a price — 1 Corinthians 7:20a. It is because we are so profoundly loved that we can’t just do whatever we please with or to our bodies. Christ has purchased us — our whole being, body, soul, and spirit — out of the slave-market of sin at the staggering cost of his own precious blood. If we really understand this, we would not think of doing anything to demean, degrade, devalue, or defile our bodies. Sexual integrity is part of how we live for love of him. As in every other area of life, we live for him because he lives for us! 

… your bodies are members of Christ — 1 Corinthians 7:15. There is an intimacy with Christ that is so deep that in some respects the slave-market image takes a subordinate place to the marriage image. Christ has wooed us as God wooed Israel, as Hosea wooed Gomer, as the Lover in Song of Songs wooed the Beloved. For as Paul puts it in Romans 7:4, “You have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to (i.e., be married to) another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.”  

A sublime mystery lies in the fact that physical union and procreation between a man and a woman is a sacramental picture of a greater union and life-generation between Christ and his people. So sublime is that greater union that it can be experienced as much by God’s celibate saints as by his married saints — such is the testimony of generations of ascetics and faithful singles. Sexual faithfulness is part of how we live in union with him! 

… your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit … glorify God in your body — 1 Corinthians 6:19b,20b. As wonderful as it is to contemplate the glory that will constitute our bodies when they are raised in power, there’s perhaps something even more wonderful about contemplating the fact that God’s glory has already taken up residence in us.  

Paul says that our puny little bodies is where the Holy Spirit dwells. This Holy Spirit is the Shekinah glory cloud that inhabited Moses’s Tabernacle and led the children of Israel through the desert. It is the Shekinah glory cloud that so filled Solomon’s Temple at its dedication that everybody had to flee. This glory dwells in us! And the only place the world gets to see this glory in the present age is when it shines through lives that manifest God’s character of holiness, justice, mercy, grace, faithfulness, and love. Sexual purity is part of how we live to glorify God in our body!  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+  

Coming Clean in Lent - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 2/28/2024 •
Wednesday of 2 Lent, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 72; Genesis 42:18–28; 1 Corinthians 5:9–6:8; Mark 4:1–20 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Wednesday of the second week of Lent. We are in Year 2 of the Daily Office Lectionary. 

When I was eleven years old I had enough of a temper problem that my parents arranged for a few after-school sessions with my physical education teacher, Mr. Tilton (many of my outbursts took place during P.E. class — you see, I wasn’t competitive at all!). It was the first time I recall anybody asking me: What is going on inside you? Is what you are doing who you want to be? And just who is it that you do want to be?  

It’s hard to say why, but things started to change for the better after that, because somebody cared enough to ask about my heart.   

I love Lent. Every year it puts before me those same questions: What is going on inside you? Is what you are doing who you want to be? And just who is it that you do want to be? Only now, it’s not Coach Tilton asking the questions, but God himself via the readings of the Daily Office.  

Mark 4: The parable of the sower. When the words of Jesus come to me, do they find welcome in fertile soil, or are they rejected by impenetrable rock? Do his words sink deeply into me and produce verdant life, or sit shallowly and spring up quickly only to wither just as quickly? And do I protect his words from competing undergrowth, or let them get strangled by weeds?  

No parable can say everything that could be said. We know that God’s Word carries its own power: it doesn’t return void, it’s sharper than a two-edged sword, it’s made powerful by the Spirit of God (Isaiah 55:11; Hebrews 4:12–13; 1 Thessalonians 1:5). While all that is true, this parable makes a complementary point: it matters what sort of reception I give God’s Word. That is part of the point of a season of: “self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word” (BCP, p. 265).  

1 Corinthians 5–6: To judge or not to judge, that is the question. You don’t spend a lifetime in Christian ministry without being hit with some nasty surprises. Among the worst is finding fellow clergy friends losing their ministries due to adulterous affairs or financial shenanigans or patterns of self-idolizing and narcissistic leadership.  

At first blush, Paul’s words about “not associat[ing] with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral, etc.,” may seem too “judgy.” I for one, however, am grateful for relationships of mutual accountability. I’m grateful too for the Lenten season’s call to reflect on temptations to immorality, to bad-mouthing others, to greed and acquisitiveness, and to drunkenness and addictive behaviors.  

I’m grateful as well for the opportunity Lent presents for repentance of the entitled attitude Paul identifies in 1 Corinthians 6, where believers are suing one another to secure their perceived “rights.” May Lent serve as a persistent call to follow Jesus in preferring rather to be wronged than to wrong, especially regarding brothers and sisters in Christ.  

Image: Pixabay

Genesis 42: You have to deal with your guilt. Joseph’s brothers have been carrying their guilt over their mistreatment of him for so long that it colors everything they do. When Pharaoh’s agent in Egypt (who happens to be their brother) lays out harsh conditions for their return home, their immediate thought is that God is punishing them for sins the Egyptian stranger couldn’t even know about: “Alas, we are paying the penalty for what we did to our brother; we saw his anguish when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen. That is why this anguish has come upon us” (Genesis 42:21).  

And when they discover on the way home that the money they had brought to purchase grain has been secretly returned to them, they can’t conceive that it might be a gracious gift (which it is!). Instead, they assume God is setting them up so he can bring the hammer of justice down on them: “At this they lost heart and turned trembling to one another, saying, ‘What is this that God has done to us?’” (Genesis 42:28b).  

A guilty conscience can radically color the way we perceive everything. Lent creates a special place in the calendar for us to take stock and to come clean with anything that needs to be brought to the Cross and laid at the feet of Jesus. Only then can we know in our hearts the certainty of the truth we affirm in our heads and confess with our lips: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).  

May we pray deeply and often during this season:  

Search me, O God, and know my heart; 
    test me and know my thoughts. 
See if there is any wicked way in me, 
    and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23–24).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+  

Untangling Knots - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 2/27/2024 •
Tuesday of 2 Lent, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are; Psalm 61; Psalm 62; Genesis 42:1–17; 1 Corinthians 5:1–8; Mark 3:19b–35b 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This is Tuesday of the second week of Lent, as we prepare for Holy Week, and we are in Year 2 of the Daily Office Lectionary.   

Mark: Binding “the strong man.” “But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.” (Mark 3:27 ESV). Jesus begins to “bind the strong man” when he defeats the tempter in the wilderness (Matthew 4; Luke 4). Every miracle thereafter exposes the loosening of Satan’s grip on people’s lives and on the creation that Jesus has come to redeem. On the cross, Jesus completely breaks Satan’s dominance: Satan’s power to condemn us, his ability to cause us to live under the fear of death, and his capacity to keep us in the thrall of sin’s compulsion.  

As our epistle and Old Testament readings show, however, living in the reality of the “binding of the strong man” is no easy task!  

1 Corinthians: Rationalizing misbehavior. “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife” (1 Corinthians 5:1). Some Christians in Corinth thought that permitting a parishioner sexual access to his mother (or stepmother) was consistent with Christian faith, that it was, in fact, enlightened and progressively expressive of Kingdom-come: “And you are proud! (1 Corinthians 5:2, NET).” To do so, however, for Paul, is to go “beyond what is written” and to violate “God’s commands” (1 Corinthians 4:6b; 7:19b) about a “man lying with his father’s wife” (Leviticus 18:8; Deuteronomy 22:30; 27:20). Furthermore, it’s to transgress commonly held moral objections about sex between parents and their offspring (e.g., the Oedipus story). Everybody.knows.it.is.wrong! 

Held back from life’s true liberation by their lust and by their spiritual pride, Christians in Corinth are unknowingly still in the grip of the “strong man.” There’s a strong cautionary note here for those of us who think we are so alive to “new creation” and so confident of the leading of the Holy Spirit that we can be enticed into rationalizing misbehavior. 

"Tangled fishing line" by Aristocrats-hat is marked with CC BY 2.0. 

Genesis: Patiently untangling the knot of sin. Growing up, the main thing I learned fishing with my brother Randy was the need for patience in untangling knots. Randy would be pulling in fish after fish. I’d be watching my bobber bob unproductively, or I’d be untangling the fishing line. If you try to untangle fishing line knots in a hurry, I discovered, you’re going to wind up with a tighter and tighter ball of mess!  

Sin compounds throughout the book of Genesis, as though to prove Paul’s point in Romans: “the free gift following many trespasses brings justification” (Romans 5:16b). Rather than intervening immediately after Adam and Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit and Cain’s murder of Abel, God allows the permutations of sin to grow and grow — interrupting with the Flood and the dispersion at the Tower of Babel. Then, even after he begins to work his redemptive plan through the special couple Abraham and Sarah, it becomes clearer and clearer how complicated sin is: the lack of faith in not waiting for God to fulfill his promise of a son to Abraham and Sarah, the contest between Jacob and Esau, Laban’s envy of Jacob, Jacob’s favoritism toward Joseph, Joseph’s snarkiness towards his brothers, his brothers’ envious selling of their brother and deception of their father. It’s all a huge mess.  

In today’s passage in Genesis, during a famine, ten of Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt to purchase grain. While Joseph recognizes them, they do not recognize him. As they bow before him, Joseph remembers his earlier dreams in which they do precisely that — and he holds his peace (compare Genesis 37:6–9 with 42:6–9). What we have here is the beginning of God’s slow untangling of the knot of sin and estrangement between the children of Jacob, the children who bear the hope of the world.  

We know that God is working his redemptive plan through all the circumstances of the Joseph story, and through these most fallen of fallen people. He is also interested in bringing reconciliation into the relationships that sin has broken apart. In Genesis 42, we see the beginning of the process by which God can patiently soften hard hearts. Here he begins to knead the hearts of Joseph’s brothers who have long lived with guilt and have worked hard to shut out its voice.  

Lent is a good season for taking stock of the patient way God works in each of his children to untie knots of sinful rebellion and to restore relationships long thought to be lost.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Sloppy Already/Not Yet - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 2/26/2024 •
Monday of 2 Lent, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 56; Psalm 57; Genesis 41:46–57; 1 Corinthians 4:8–21; Mark 3:7–19a 

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

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

Almost without exception, when a person answers my “How are you?” with, “Livin’ the dream, man, livin’ the dream,” I know the real answer is quite different. More like, “I’ve got more going out than coming in, I’m losing my kids, things are flat with my spouse, and my dog just died.” Most people are living less than “the dream.” And it’s amplified by the larger horrorscape we are living in: profound worries about the viability of government based on consensus, with politicians seeming to be more interested in scoring points than in helping citizens; frightening scenarios being played out on the international stage; and in their personal lives people profoundly perplexed and at odds on matters of personal identity and race. “Livin’ the dream, man”? Not so much! 

Today’s readings in Genesis and 1 Corinthians offer perspective and wisdom for living our less-than-ideal lives in a less-than-ideal world.  

Joseph’s seven years of plenty and seven years of famine. Regarding dreams, Joseph has been given a gift. It’s been a mixed blessing. Rashly sharing his own dreams gets him sold into slavery, while interpreting the Egyptian cupbearer’s dream (eventually) lifts him from prison. Interpreting Pharaoh’s dream leads to him being placed in charge of the entire Egyptian economy, from which position he makes Egypt the breadbasket of the surrounding world.  

More subtly, Joseph’s dreams accomplish two important things on God’s behalf in the Genesis narrative. In the first place, Joseph provides an advance look at the way Yahweh intends to bless the world through Abraham’s seed. Israel’s divine mission is to reverse the curse of the Garden and the Flood and the Tower of Babel, that is, to put an end to sin and death and alienation and estrangement. Here toward the end of Genesis, a seed of Abraham not only blesses the nation of Israel with provision in advance of famine, but he enables that nation to be a blessing to other nations during that famine.  

In the second place, Joseph’s reconciliation with his brothers (a reversal of the fratricide theme introduced with the Cain and Abel story) leads to Jacob bringing his family to Egypt, thereby staging the future, and long prophesied, sojourn and rescue from “a country not their own” (see Genesis 15:13–14).  

By exercising faithful stewardship of his gift, by showing humility in the face of personal adversity, and by displaying prudence when granted prosperity, Joseph contributes to God’s larger redemptive purposes in ways probably beyond his ability to comprehend.  

Image: Pixabay

Paul’s “Would that you were kings…” Paul rebukes the Corinthians for their arrogant blustering. They mask their insecurities with a great display of their Kingdom-of-God status. They act like they mean it when they say they are “livin’ the dream!” Paul mockingly parrots them, “Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings!” (1 Corinthians 4:8a). If I may paraphrase their mindset and self-claims: “In Jesus, we’re livin’ the dream! We have charismatic gifts! We’ve been raised up with Christ and rule with him! We live the victorious Christian life! We know the Spirit’s leading, and it surpasses Scripture’s teachings, because our God hasn’t stopped speaking — he speaks to us!!” (see 1 Corinthians 4:6,8a).  

Paul’s rejoinder cuts to the quick: “Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you!” (1 Corinthians 4:8b). He then introduces a theme that will course through his two epistles to the Corinthians: “For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.  To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day” (1 Corinthians 4:9–13; and see also the parallel thoughts at 4:4–18; 6:4–10; 11:23–27; 12:10). 

We live in a sloppy “already/not yet” situation — that is to say, redemption has been accomplished for us, the benefits of which are being partially applied to our lives now, but which we will not receive completely until Christ returns to consummate history and to raise us up from the dead. The Corinthians dissolve the “already/not yet” into an over-realized eschatology in which there’s only an “already.” Paul works hard to help them (and us) understand that the “already/not yet” in which we live involves suffering — and a lot of it.  

The power of God, insists Paul, is manifest not in escaping the ugliness of broken relationships, marauding tyrants, beloved people or pets who die, and perplexing questions. The power of God is manifest in knowing the crucified Christ who walks with us through it all, helping us to bear the cross he has called on us to take up.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+