No Matter What Comes Our Way - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 7/8/2024 •

Monday of Proper 9

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 1; Psalm 2; Psalm 3; Numbers 32:1-6, 16-27; Romans 8:26-30; Matthew 23:1-12

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)

This week’s readings in the Old Testament are transitional. The Israelites are on the cusp of their campaign to cross the River Jordan and begin the conquest of the Promised Land—a campaign that will take place after Moses’s death. In today’s reading, Moses secures the Reubenites’ and the Gadites’ promise to participate in the upcoming military campaign despite their decision to settle east of the Jordan. In subsequent readings this week: 

• Moses assigns towns for the Levites (who will have no inheritance of land, but will be disbursed among the tribes), as well as cities of refuge (Tuesday), 

• Moses reminds the Israelites of the structure of leadership under “judges” that he had established and which he expects them to continue in the Promised Land (Wednesday), 

• Moses transfers leadership from himself to Joshua (Thursday), 

• Moses offers his valedictory (Friday), and departs this life at age 120 (Saturday). 

With so many transitions going on around us in our own day, it’s worth taking note of Moses’s end. As a consequence of disobedience, Moses eventually understood that he would not be allowed to enter the Promised Land. But he was allowed to view the goal toward which he had, as friend of God, been leading the people—a gifted he accepted with grace. Entrusting himself to the Lord of his redemption, he worked to make the transition for the next generation of leadership as smooth as possible. 

Romans 8:26-30. Here are five of the richest verses Paul ever pens. Paul has just been contemplating how we are caught in the tension between an adoption that is “now” and “not yet.” We know that new life in Christ means sin and death no longer reign in us, but we also know full well the drag of the old life. We joyfully call God “Abba! Father!” But out of the feeling that we are not quite home, we also groan in concert with a creation that longs for release from corruption. 

That tension would be incapacitating were it not for our champion, the Holy Spirit. In fact, says Paul, we would not even know how to pray were it not for the Holy Spirit. But by means of the Spirit, Christ himself dwells deep within us. The Holy Spirit explores those deep cavities of our hearts, and enables “sighs too deep for words”—rather like an escape valve that keeps us from exploding from the pent up anxiety and pain within. 

Deeper than that is the fact the Holy Spirit has been poured out into our hearts enabling us to love God (Romans 5:5). And when we, by the enabling of God’s own Spirit, love God, we can have a confidence that no matter what comes our way—good or bad—our loving Heavenly Father uses it for our good. That is the point of Romans 8:28, and I rather like the force of the variant from the Vulgate that the Jerusalem Bible notes: “We know that for those who love God everything conspires for good….” Everything.conspires.for.good. Everything. Lord, give us grace to hold on to that truth!

And this short paragraph climaxes with a string of lovely statements about what God the Father has done to secure our relationship with him: 

• He foreknew us—that is, he has loved us (this is “know” in the biblical sense, as in “Adam knew Eve,” the result of which was a child) from the foundation of the world (see Gen 4:1; see Gen 18:19; Jer 1:5; Amos 3:2; Gal 4:9 [cf. Mt 7:23]; 1Co 8:3).

• He predestined us—yes, that means he chose us before we chose him. In fact, if he hadn’t done so, we never would have made the good choice. But he did, so we did. 

• He called us—he gave us ears to hear. Elsewhere, Paul says we were dead in our trespasses and sins until God made us alive together with Christ (Ephesians 2:1-4). The capacity to say “Yes!” to God comes entirely from that inner call which God and God alone enables us to hear. 

• He justified us—he cleared us of every charge against us—every charge from the law, every charge from our enemy the devil, every charge from anyone who doesn’t like us, every charge from our own conscience. 

• He glorified us—so sure is our future destiny of resurrection, that Paul can (rhetorically) put it in the past tense: it’s a done deal. 

There’s a lifetime of praise to be offered from the contemplation of these five verses alone!

One matter I failed to note just now is that God’s predestining love has a goal—and that goal is not that we become some sort of “frozen chosen,” but live and love as though profoundly loved (which we are)! The Father’s goal for us is that we become “conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters” (Romans 8:29 NRSV edited). 

Matthew & conformity to the image of the Son. The beauty of Matthew’s gospel is that Jesus lays out very clearly what conformity to his image looks like. He has put it more positively in the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7), and now with elegant symmetry, more negatively in the Final Discourses of Matthew 23-25. Just so, in the Beatitudes of Matthew 5:1-12, Jesus has sketched the life he has come to inculcate (rather like the blessings of Mt. Gerizim in Deuteronomy 27:12; 28:1-14); while in the Woes of Matthew 23, Jesus now outlines the life he has come to deliver us from (rather like the curses of Mt. Ebal in Deuteronomy 27:13-26; 28:15-68). Lord, have mercy. 

All who exalt themselves will be humbled. — Matthew 23:12. While the blessedness of the Kingdom comes to those who are “poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3), the Kingdom is far from those who take pride in titles and practice their religiosity in order to be seen by others. Christ, have mercy. 

They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others… — Matthew 23:4. While comfort will come to those who empathize with and mourn over the troubles of others (Matthew 5:4), there will be no joy for those who show no compassion for, no tenderness towards, their fellows who are burdened by life’s hardships or the weightiness of the law. Lord, have mercy. 

I pray you live in the blessedness of the Kingdom—of the ongoing work of the Father to conform you, by the Spirit, into the image of his beloved Son. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Now and Not Yet - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 7/5/2024 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 140; Psalm 142; Numbers 24:1-13 [12-25]; Romans 8:12-17 [18-25]; Matthew 22:15-22

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)

Bye-bye, Balaam. In his 3rd & 4th oracles, Balaam sets aside his practices of divination, and the Spirit of God comes upon him. He offers his most straightforward blessing of Israel, and he is given a vision that “a star will rise from Jacob; a scepter will emerge from Israel” (Numbers 24:17), who will make Israel victorious over surrounding countries. And what a gift to the church this verse has been, serving as text for a piece in Felix Mendelssohn’s unfinished Christus oratorio. 

At the end of his interviews with Balak of Moab, Balaam promises to go home to Syria. Nonetheless, it appears he stays, and eventually takes up residence among the Israelites. He returns to his divining practices. His presence over time subverts Israel’s faith, as he encourages sexual promiscuity and idolatrous worship. Eventually, the Israelites put him to death (Numbers 31:8). The New Testament remembers him not as prophet of Messiah, but as someone who loved to earn money by luring people into false worship and sexual misbehavior. Lord, have mercy. 

Adoption: now and not yet. 

… you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. — Romans 8:16.

… we ourselves, [having] the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. — Romans 8:23. 

Image: Pixabay

In the juxtaposition of these two verses lies all the tension of the Christian life: an intimate joy at knowing that we are children of God and an inward groaning while we wait to become children of God. Ours is an adoption that is “now” and that is also “not yet.” It’s a sense of being God’s child that begins as soon as Christ takes up residence within us by his Spirit. (By the way, if you feel unsure about whether Christ has come to dwell within you, get in touch with me, and we can talk.) 

At the same time, the “not yet” side of adoption is the sober realization that until resurrection, we are not quite home yet. Our bodies are still frail and subject to decay, and we are still susceptible to sinning. But even this, Paul says, is a sense that we only have because the Spirit inside us is a foretaste of what it is to be free at last from the curse of sin and death. The Spirit within us enables us (as in Romans 7) to delight in God’s law and (as in the first part of Romans 8) to see the law being fulfilled in our humble attempts to follow the Spirit. And at the very same time, the Spirit provokes inner groaning—from deep, deep within our renewed selves—just because we feel the pain of not yet having been made perfect. 

That day will come when Christ’s resurrection becomes our own—when what Paul calls “the outer man” (which is subject to decay in the now—see 2 Corinthians 4:16) and “the inner man” (which is already being made new “day by day”—again, see 2 Corinthians 4:16) are no longer headed in opposite directions, but will have finally been brought perfectly in sync in the newness of new creation. 

Meanwhile, we rejoice, and we groan. That’s the normal Christian life. I submit it’s the only way we can find perspective for entering a weekend in which we celebrate the 4th of July’s promise of freedom (signed both in ink in Philadelphia on 7/4/1776 and in blood in Gettysburg on 7/1-3/1863), and in which we lament how far from the promise of freedom too many Americans still are. 

We are not surprised when the world around us feels the same conflict that we find inside ourselves. That realization alone anchors us and energizes us as we both wait for and work towards the day when “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

To Revel in God's Deliverance - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 7/4/2024 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 131; Psalm 132; Psalm 133; Numbers 23:11-26; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 22:1-14

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)

Balaam’s second oracle. In this second of four oracles that Balaam is to deliver to Balak king of Moab, the seer reiterates Yahweh’s message that, “The Lord their God is with them, acclaimed as a king among them” (Numbers 23:21), and that no matter what, “no enchantment, … no divination” will prevail against Israel (Numbers 23:23). It’s humbling to watch Balaam say truthful and faithful things when we know his heart is actually far off. 

Whenever we are surrounded by voices that come from mixed motives and hidden agendas—talking heads on the right and on the left who know they are lying to us but do so anyway, politicians who put their fortunes above people’s well-being—it’s important to keep listening for the Lord’s voice. He is King, and eventually his purposes will prevail. 

Romans 8 is Paul’s elegant and powerful response to his own question: “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” In Romans 8, he revels in the combined work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to accomplish just such a deliverance. 

Image: "an unwitting victim...bwahahhahahaa" by bark is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Father. In this first paragraph (verses 1-11), Paul says that what the law could not do, God (meaning the Father) does: he sends his Son. There’s no such thing as a bad Old Testament God and a good New Testament God. As Paul has already said, “God proves his love for us in that … Christ died.” The Father puts his only beloved Son to the service of taking away the sins of the world, so that, in the words of the Anglican Puritan theologian Richard Sibbes, “God the Father, the party offended by our sins, is…well pleased with the work of redemption.” The entire mission of rescue is a mission of the Father’s love. 

Son. The mess that we could not get ourselves out of is the feeling—indeed, the knowing—that our sins merit utter condemnation from God. But now there is no condemnation, because the Son has come, says Paul, “in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin.” What a universe of meaning in those few words! 

…in the likeness…of flesh — Jesus Christ is like us in all things, save sin. He assumed the totality of our humanness so that the totality of our humanness could be saved—from the top of our heads to the tips of our toes! As the early church fathers said, “What cannot be assumed cannot be saved.” 

in the likeness of sinful flesh — God’s unfolding design ever since the Garden has been to gather up and to concentrate all the world’s sin into One Person—a Second Adam—who would stand in for all the rest of humankind, receiving in his own Person the full weight of the consequences of every sin ever committed. Note the “where” of Romans 5:20—“where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” That “where” was ultimately Calvary, where Isaiah 53’s Suffering Servant hung, “pierced for our transgressions … to justify the many” (Romans 4:25, and Isaiah 53:4-6, 11-12). 

and for sin. This is a most intriguing phrase. In Leviticus 5:7-8; 6:25 (= 6:18 in the Greek), it’s the offering for the little sins: the guilt offering. The big sins are handled by the propitiation of the Day of Atonement (to which Paul has already referred in Romans 3:25-26). Here in Romans 8, Paul wants us to know God also taken care of the tiny sins too—the unconscious, unintentional, not-exactly-what-I-intended sins. Those are the kind of sins that provoke the inner anxiety of Romans 7:14-25. It’s amazing—and comforting—that these are the sins that Paul would focus on here. His point is that Christ’s sacrifice is so exhaustive that it takes care of the subtlest and smallest as well as the most obvious and biggest-ticket sins. It takes care of the ones we can easily walk away from and forget (until maybe the middle of the night!) and the ones that will accuse our consciences day and night, all the days of our lives. No matter how trifling, no matter how enormous, Christ has handled them. 

Holy Spirit. The Father loves us, and therefore sends the Son. The Son comes and offers himself “for sin.” The Holy Spirit’s part is to become God’s onboard presence in our lives—which is largely Paul’s subject in the rest of this chapter. But for now, briefly, Paul wants us to know that the Spirit of God makes his home within us and begins to set our house in order. 

The Spirit of God enables a “walk,” declares Paul, that (utterly amazingly!) fulfills “the just requirements of the law” (Romans 8:4). I’ll write that again: The Spirit of God enables a “walk” that fulfills “the just requirements of the law” (Romans 8:4). That means—staggeringly!—that when God sees you and me taking baby steps, what he sees is giant Spirit-empowered strides. When we feel like we are offering obedience that is but scraps, God receives it as an abundance produced by the Spirit of the One who fed 5,000 with two loaves and five fishes. When we are aware our motives are mixed, God purifies them by the Spirit of love that he has poured out in our hearts because we are in Christ. 

God loves us. The Son gives himself for us. The Holy Spirit lives in us. The result: We—grab on to this!—offer love for God and neighbor that God himself finds satisfying. The mindset is utterly different than the “I’m a worthless shlub” mentality that besets so many people. I pray that this truth breaks in upon you today—and makes this a very special day. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Acknowledging What We All Feel - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 7/3/2024 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:145-176; Numbers 22:41–23:12; Romans 7:13-25; Matthew 21:33-46

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)

Balaam had a good day today. He consults the Lord before speaking, and then blesses rather than curses Israel. 

But today we focus on the epistle.

Today’s reading in Romans is a head-scratcher. Paul has just said, “Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies” and “Sin will have no dominion over you” (Romans 6:12, 14). But here he writes as though the opposite were true: “I am of the flesh, sold into slavery unto sin” and “With my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin” (Romans 7:14, 25). 

For centuries, students of Paul have argued among themselves about Paul’s meaning in Romans 7:14-25. Some think that by adding Romans 7’s realism about feeling defeated by sin to Romans 6’s theme of victory over sin, Paul describes the normal Christian’s—including his own—continuing struggle with sin. Here, they say, Paul vividly engages the existential reality of a salvation that has already taken hold of the believer, but that has not yet become complete, and will not be made complete until final resurrection. Others think that Paul is describing two different people: in Romans 6 the Christian believer, and in Romans 7 the (probably Jewish) not-yet-believer, whose conscience has been pricked by the law. 

Image: Adaptation, "Schizophrenic Reflection" by tj.blackwell is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

According to the first view, Romans 7’s bemoaning the effects of sin describes part of (almost) every Christian’s life. According to the second view, only Romans 6’s celebration of victory over sin, and not Romans 7’s lament about the effects of sin, describes the Christian life—or at least what the Christian life is supposed to be. 

Those who hold the first view worry that the second view leads to a naïve and shallow triumphalism about the Christian life—“If I’m not feeling the victory at every moment, there must be something wrong with me. Maybe I’m not really saved.” Those who hold the second view worry that the first view results in a sense that the Christian life is depressing and morbidly defeatist—“The best I can hope for in my Christian life is to get used to being justified as a sinner, feeling bad enough about my sin that I will constantly confess it and receive absolution.”

I happen to think that in Romans 7 Paul does reflect on the believer’s awareness of the drag of sin to which they are susceptible (the first view), even though they know the truths of Romans 4 & 5’s message that justification comes by faith and Romans 6’s good news that new life has taken hold of them. Sin still indwells, and it disturbs us, because it’s not supposed to be there! 

The resolution awaits Romans 8, where Paul will turn to the power of the Holy Spirit to lead us, to bear witness to our (self-condemning) spirits that we are indeed God’s children, to groan with us at our struggle as sinners in a still fallen world, to mold us to further conformity to Christ’s image, to shout down any lingering voices of condemnation, and to remind us that even in this life “we are more than conquerors.” 

Romans 7 allows us to acknowledge what we all feel: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” Romans 7 gives us words for the near schizophrenia we feel when we find ourselves at war within ourselves over “let Thy will be done” and “let my will be done.” Romans 7 gives voice to our cry for deliverance, for rescue—and in that very gift, Romans 7, sandwiched as it is between Romans 4-6 and Romans 8, reminds us that the Lord has already heard our cry. Faith justifies, the Spirit intercedes, Christ molds, the Father loves—the victory that began at the cross and resurrection will be completed, for “the sufferings of this present time (including the lingering—sometimes debilitating— effects of sin) are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us” (Romans 8: 18). 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

The Donkey is the Smart One - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 7/2/2024 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 120; Psalm 121; Psalm 122; Psalm 123; Numbers 22:21-38; Romans 7:1-12; Matthew 21:23-32

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) 

Three insights today on how important the heart is. Balaam’s behavior may be restrained by external restraint, but his wayward heart is untouched. Paul reflects on the powerlessness even of God’s good law to restrain sinful passions. Jesus calls out the folly of professed faith that proves faithless, and commends honest resistance to faith when it turns into true profession and discipleship. 

Balaam’s “bit & bridle.” Balaam’s is a cautionary tale. He knows enough to do as he’s told. Yahweh has instructed him to accept Balak’s summons to court. Moreover, we will discover that, at God’s command, Balaam will not offer the curse on Israel that Balak demands. Yet God knows that Balaam’s “way is perverse,” that is, his heart does not belong to him. Balaam only does as much as he’s told, and no more. He will be a mouthpiece, but he will not give himself to be a follower of the Lord. All along, Balaam will be shrewdly looking to his own interests. 

Image: Pixabay

It is richly ironic that it is by means of a donkey that the Lord channels Balaam’s behavior and then speaks to him. “A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of fools,” says Proverbs 26:3. And Psalm 32:9 cautions, “Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.” In Balaam’s case, the donkey is the smart one, and the human is the one without understanding who needs bit and bridle. Even with the bit and bridle of the donkey’s turning from the path and speaking on Yahweh’s behalf, Balaam yields merely external, behavioral obedience. 

When the human heart is dead to the Lord, it doesn’t matter what circumstances or what voices the Lord uses. Unless the Lord makes the dead heart live, the response will be one of a dead person—the walking death of spiritual death. 

A good divorce. In this, the first paragraph of Romans 7, the apostle Paul reflects on the way that, holy as it is, God’s law is unable to solve the problem of spiritual death. Ultimately, the law is unable to put an effective bit and bridle on “sinful passions.” To the contrary, by forbidding them, the law makes them more attractive and more powerful, accentuating the need for a completely new start, a completely new set of desires. 

Paul employs two images—first, the image of a divorce by which one person becomes as dead to the other. It’s a nuanced metaphor—in this metaphor we are the wife trapped in a bad marriage; and we are released when “the husband dies” (understood, becomes dead to us through divorce — Romans 7: 3). In the rest of his epistle, Paul makes it clear that his point here is limited: in Christ, we actually become keepers of the law in its deepest sense, for now we have the capacity to love God (Romans 5:5; 8:28) and our neighbor (13:8-10). The law’s death-sentence against sin and disobedience has been satisfied in God’s setting forth his Son as propitiating sacrifice (Romans 3:25). In this sense, the law is now dead to us. And we are dead to any claim of condemnation that the law would otherwise have over us (Romans 8:1-4). 

It’s to this effect that Paul uses his second image in this paragraph: the law killed us by provoking in us the desperation of our hearts (“all kinds of covetousness”) that made the need for the cross so apparent. Thus, we have been divorced from the law (the law is dead to us) and we have died to the law (our old, guilty self was crucified with Christ on the cross). With our old husband (the law) dead, we are as though raised from the dead ourselves. We have entered a new marriage, a marriage to Christ Jesus. In this marriage, we are able to live by the Spirit, obey gladly and from the heart, and “bear fruit for God” (Romans 7:4). 

Praise be that the law has done its work of pointing up the need for a blood-soaked cross. Praise be for the living Christ who now lives, by the Spirit, in us to reproduce his life through us. 

Two sons. Then there are the two sons of Matthew 21. One declares obedience to his father, but never follows through. That son is the embodiment of the religious leaders who profess loyalty to Israel’s God, but who can muster up only a slothful and faithless, “We don’t know,” when God’s Son demands they deal with him and his mission. The other son says he’s not interested in doing the father’s will, but reconsiders. This son is the embodiment of the sinners and tax-collectors and prostitutes and ne’er-do-wells who repent and follow Jesus. 

Better the honest “Not interested” that reconsiders its rashness than the dishonest “I’m all in!” that is, and remains, mere lip service. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Grace Has... - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 7/1/2024 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 106; Numbers 22:1-21; Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 21:12-22

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)

Introducing Balaam. This week’s readings in Numbers recount the sad adventures of the Syrian fortune-teller Balaam. He’s most remembered for the fact that Yahweh rebukes him by making his donkey talk. Scripture never gives him a title, such as prophet. But he makes a living by taking fees as a diviner. He at least respects Yahweh, calling him “Yahweh, my God” (Numbers). To his credit, Balaam refuses to curse those whom Yahweh blesses. Numbers even records him rendering a powerful Messianic prophecy: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near—a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel” (Numbers 24:17). 

Nonetheless, Scripture’s verdict concerning Balaam is not good. When it comes to Yahweh, Balaam is more a user than a believer. He is remembered as a false teacher who subtly led Israelites into immorality and idolatry (Numbers 31:15-20; Revelation 2:14), ever looking to turn a profit by hawking words from God (Deuteronomy 23:4-5; Joshua 13:22; 2 Peter 2:15; Jude 11). Numbers 31 records the fact that the Israelites eventually kill him—no doubt, to rid themselves of his pernicious influence. (Numbers 31:8). 

It’s only fitting that we begin a week’s worth of readings about someone who uses religion instead of submitting to it on the day we read the apostle Paul’s “Gotta Serve Somebody” passage, that is, Romans 6:12-23. 

You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

Grace has one rule: You’re free. Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means — Romans 6:15. In Jesus Christ, I am justified. I am accepted into the very presence of God himself, as the hymn says, “Just as I am without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me…” That means I can stop trying to justify myself. I can stop trying to prove to you that I’m good enough. I can stop sinning against you by using you to feel good about myself—like taking a girlfriend just so I can be seen with her, or calling you only when I need something from you. I am free to stop asserting my rights and getting my needs met, so I can focus on what benefits you. For Paul, that’s what it means to live under grace instead of law. 

And so, as Jesus says in Matthew 10:42, being ready to give a cup of cold water becomes an instinct I don’t even have to think about. As does Matthew 25’s visiting Him in prison and in the hospital, clothing him, feeding him—as our baptismal vows put it: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? 

Grace has one school: the church. … obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted — Romans 6:17. Having been submitted for years to a sensei to learn a martial art for cutting targets with a steel Japanese samurai sword, it’s scary to watch YouTube videos of “backyard samurai.” Not only are they dangerous, but they haven’t submitted themselves to learning the whole manner of being and the attitude that goes with cutting those targets—a way of moving your body in space, of timing, of grace that’s just as much a part of the art as is cutting the targets. 

The Christian faith is just like that. We can’t free-form it, or we will be in big trouble. That’s why Paul says we have been “entrusted” to a “form of teaching” to give us our bearings. That form of teaching is the Scriptures, and then the way the Scriptures were summed up in the creeds and embodied in the church’s worship. It’s why it’s important to make worship-filled reading of and submitting to Scripture your first appointment of the day. It’s why worship with the saints is vital. It keeps us from being dangerous “backyard samurai.” 

For Paul, we don’t have to—in fact, we can’t—face the challenges of each day on our own. Whether the challenges are the ones everybody is facing—like societal reckoning with race—or ones that are personal to us—a relationship that isn’t working or health that’s failing or income that’s vanishing—we are not left to sort things out all on our own. We need to begin with “the form of teaching to which we were entrusted.” 

Grace has one goal: sanctification. … so now you present your members as slaves to righteousness for (older translations render unto) sanctification. — Romans 6:19. Paul says that the arc of our lives is heading in one direction or another: “unto lawlessness” which will eventuate in eternal death, or “unto sanctification” which will eventuate in eternal life. Of course, his premise is that outside of Christ we are already dead, and that when we accept Christ it is as though we are alive from the dead—for eternal life has already taken hold. 

C. S. Lewis wrote a profound parable about this reality. In The Great Divorce, Lewis imagines a bus ride from hell to heaven. In his fantasy (and it is a fantasy), residents of hell have the option of staying in heaven if they wish. The problem is: few of them do so. They are so acclimated to the ghostliness and the isolation of their place in hell (habits they acquired over the course of their lives on earth) that the solidity of the things in heaven and the nonstop joyful companionship of heaven are distinctly uncomfortable. Lewis’s point is that eventually, every one of us is going to wake up on the other side. There we will find that our whole lives have been preparing us to feel right at home where we are: the hell of narcissistic isolation or the heaven of blessed fellowship. 

So, grace makes you free not to be a narcissistic jerk. Grace takes you deeper and deeper into Scripture and the Church’s story—and takes that story deeper and deeper into you. And grace makes this day one step further into the life of heaven that has already taken hold in you. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Paradise Regained - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 6/28/2024 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 102; Numbers 20:1-13; Romans 5:12-21; Matthew 20:29-34

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)

A Flawed Mediator. Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them. — Numbers 20:12. As sympathetic a figure as Moses is—humblest on the earth, ever interceding for a rebellious people, and friend of Yahweh—he shows himself to be as powerless against sin as the rest of us. 

The Lord has simply told Moses to command the rock (and not, by the way, to scold the people) so that the water will flow for the people and their livestock. But Moses works himself up into a fury against the thirsty people. Not content obediently to command the rock, he oversteps and strikes the rock with the staff of God’s authority, and that not once, but twice. In Yahweh’s estimation, this lack of trust places Moses in solidarity with the rest of his generation that had tested Yahweh—those who identified with Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10), the gluttons from the first plague (Numbers 11), the ten cowardly spies (Numbers 14), and most recently Korah and company, and the 14,700 who died in the second plague (Numbers 16). Moses will be the last of his generation to perish without entering the Promised Land—though, friend of God that he is, not without a glimpse of it. 

It’s a scene with a lot of pathos. It’s a sober reminder to all of us to be vigilant, as the hymn says, to “trust and obey.”

Image: Adaptation, Pixabay

Paradise Regained. As a whole, the Old Testament unfolds as a saga of expulsion from the Garden—of exile from Paradise, a life in perfect communion with God—and of God’s preparing a way for humankind to return. Israel is entrusted with the oracles of God. Her mission is to bear the promise of return, and at the same time, the burden of its cost. We’ve just seen that Moses—the law-giver and one who spoke face to face with Yahweh himself—is susceptible to the curse of disobedience that is common to all humankind. 

Carrying forward the storyline of that saga, the epistle to the Romans is animated by an incredible sense of peace, hope, and confidence (for instance, in Romans 5:1-11—yesterday’s reading). The way “back in” has opened up. In today’s reading—some of the densest and most pregnant sentences he is ever to compose—Paul explains the source of such peace, hope and confidence. In Jesus Christ, Israel has ushered onto the stage of world history—and into our personal lives—the One who undoes the tragedy of the Garden. 

In brief, here are the points Paul makes in this brilliant paragraph: 

1. The “fall”—along with death that accompanied it—was a natural and just consequence of Adam’s disobedience; but the free gift of eternal life is an extraordinary, countervailing manifestation of “God’s grace” and his “gracious gift in Christ” (v. 15). 

2. It might have been easy for God to intervene to fix things immediately after the fall, but he did it only “after many transgressions” (i.e., after the situation had become arguably unfixable — v. 16). The fall set in motion a sorrowful domino-like series of tragedies (think Shakespeare), that would magnify the loving and merciful character of God in a way that something resolvable by a quick fix would not. Human self-help couldn’t reverse the cumulative effects of “many transgressions.” But God could. And he did. 

3. In sum: One man, Christ, offers “righteous conduct” (dikaioma)—i.e., the obedience of his whole life and of his mounting the cross of Calvary—that leads to the “rightwise-ing/justifying/making right” (dikaiosis) of all. One man, Christ, offers the perfect obedience that undoes the first man’s disobedience. 

4. Thus, while in the present, “sin reigns” because Adam forfeited his/our right to rule, when all is said and done “those who receive…the gift of righteousness will reign” (v. 17) and “grace also will reign” (v. 21). 

5. Result: the entrance of sin into human experience will prove to have brought about God’s greater grace (vv. 20-21). The line from the original “Exsultet” comes to mind: “O truly needful sin of Adam which was blotted out by the death of Christ! O happy fault (felix culpa) which merited so great a Redeemer!” 

I pray that our lives may be as animated as are Paul’s words with the sense of peace, hope, and confidence that comes from knowing that, in Christ, grace has taken the field on our behalf. And I pray we all may grip firmly onto the deep understanding that that grace is greater than all the evil, all the confusion, all the sickness we see around—and in—ourselves. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Life from a Dead Tree - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 6/27/2024 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105:1-22; Numbers 17:1-11; Romans 5:1-11; Matthew 20:17-28

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)

Signature insights from Numbers, Romans, and Matthew wondrously converge in today’s readings. 

Life from a Tree. When Moses went into the tent of the covenant on the next day, the staff of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted. It put forth buds, produced blossoms, and bore ripe almonds. — Numbers 20:8. Life emerges from a dead tree, proof of God’s choice of Aaron’s priesthood. This is one of the amazing portraits of the coming Mediator in the book of Numbers. Millennia later God will prove his choice of Jesus’s priesthood in similar fashion, by raising him to life after death on Calvary’s tree. The writer to the Hebrews reminds us that Aaron was priest solely by God’s choice (Hebrews 5:8), and that Jesus too is priest solely by God’s choice. Further, Hebrews points up the way the almond-graced rod was preserved in the ark as a permanent reminder of Aaron’s priesthood (Hebrews 9:3), and then portrays Jesus’s ongoing ministry as “high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:20, and following). While Aaron’s mortality meant that he had to be followed by many priests of his lineage, Jesus’s resurrection means he ministers forever: proclaiming the Father’s name, singing in the midst of the congregation, ever living to intercede, and bringing bread and wine from God’s holy altar (Hebrews 2:12; 7:25; 13:10). Although his work on the cross for us has been completed, Jesus does not cease his work in our lives. Even now. His ongoing ministry means he is praying for his church, praying for each of us. Praise be. 

Image: Adaptation, Pixabay

Paul’s John 3:16. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. — Romans 5:8. If there is one truth in Paul’s letters that is worth burning into our brains, it’s this one. The life-giving tree on which Christ hung is all the proof any of us needs that God does not hate us, but instead loves us. God gave his Son up to death that we may escape the wrath we deserve (Romans 5:9), and so that we may boast that on the day of the great reckoning we will have a share in the glory of God (Romans 5:3,10-11). That word, “boast,” gives some of us a little trouble. It is often too closely linked with “bluster” and “brag”—so, not in a good way.  Paul doesn’t intend us to think of boasting as an excessive, vain, self-centered behavior. Rather, it’s a bit more like being proud of, and proclaiming the praises of, say, the Gators or the Seminoles (or Army vs. Navy if you are my friend, and West Point grad, Peter Tepper). Paul thinks it is perfectly acceptable to “boast” about God and his mercy and kindness towards us. “He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31). 

Not only that, Paul says, but when trials come, we can see in every challenge the promise of Spirit-worked character: “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5, RSV). It’s almost too much to take in. It is almost too much to remember. So, because it is so wonderfully—and gloriously—and truly—true, even our “boasting” becomes a way to remind ourselves of the worth of God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. Praise be. 

The Great “So What?” …and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. — Matthew 20:27. And just so, we can let go of the need to make ourselves Number One. Jesus gives a comprehensive and sobering description of the ultimately world-changing things that are about to happen in Jerusalem: his arrest, condemnation, mocking, flogging, crucifixion, and—incomprehensibly—his rising from the dead. 

Of all the possible reactions to that news, Matthew records this response: an overly ambitious mother lobbying to put her ambitious sons (see Luke 9:46) in the positions of highest honor when the Kingdom comes. At one level, it’s staggering to imagine such naked, selfish ambition right after they have heard the unhappy details of the awful things that were about to be done to Jesus. And yet, at another level, isn’t there a lot of that instinct in every single one of us? 

Perhaps, knowing this about his disciples (and about us), perhaps this is why Jesus calls the disciples to him. To.Spell.It.Out: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.  It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant,  and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave;  just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Lord, have mercy. Give us grace this day to take our bearings from the Son of Man who “came not to be served but to serve.” 

Give us grace, we pray, to give thanks for the life that blossomed from the tree, and that continues to intercede for us.

Give us grace, we pray, to delight in the love you have shown us, Father, in the gift of your Son, and that you continue to pour into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). 

Give us grace, we pray, as simultaneously slaves of Christ and heirs of his kingdom, to attend not to our own needs this day, but to the needs of those around us. Amen.

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Grace Intervenes - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 6/26/2024 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 101; Psalm 109; Numbers 16:36-50; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 20:1-16

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)

God “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” With these words from his epistle to the Romans, Paul marvels at the fact that the gift of faith lifts Jews out of spiritual death and calls Gentiles out of spiritual nonexistence.

Death, Spiritual and Otherwise. The spiritual death of which Paul speaks is vividly displayed in today’s Numbers passage—and so is the summons from death to life. Instead of recognizing Yahweh’s perfect and righteous judgment against the sin of Korah, “the whole congregation of the Israelites” blame God’s punishment on Moses and Aaron. “You have killed the people of the Lord,” they claim. This rebellion of unbelief is nothing but the manifestation of an ultimately fatal underlying condition. Sin is a walking death—deserving of God’s wrath. God tells Moses, “Get away from this assembly so I can put an end to them at once.” When the glory cloud of Yahweh descends upon the people (who are already dead, spiritually) it has the effect of finishing the process. Thus, a plague breaks out. Over 14,000 people die, the physical death completing the end of their earthly existence.

Image: Pixabay

Grace Intervenes. But then—and herein lies the glory of the Bible: like a brilliant shaft of light in the dark, grace (unmerited favor), breaks into the story. Here’s where Israel’s narrative differs from the epics and the myths and the stories of ancient heroes, gods, and goddesses. Instead of letting dike or kharma or divine vengeance have its way, the Bible recounts a redeeming mediation. Interceding for the people at Yahweh’s anger, Moses and Aaron “fell on their faces.” Moses sends his brother Aaron the high priest with lit censer “into the middle of the assembly where the plague had already begun among the people.” There Aaron puts incense on the lit coals, and offers the smoke. Standing “between the dead and the living,” Aaron’s billowing smoke “made atonement for the people”—literally, “covered the people.” The sweet savor of the incense covered the stench of rebellion, of mistrust, of spiritual death. It brought the plague to a halt. The Bible is all about turning death into life, foul stench into fragrant aroma, enmity into amity. And the Bible proclaims this truth: believe Yahweh unto life, renounce rebellion unto death.

Christ as Fragrant Offering. In precisely these terms Paul calls his readers to believe “him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.” Or, as he says in a later epistle, “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). Under the Old Covenant, smoke of incense and of whole burnt offering rose upward in Israel’s sacrifices to cover—and thus, temporarily to atone for—the offensive stench and rottenness of sin. In the New Covenant, our Great High Priest places himself, first, in the midst of the congregation. Then, on the Cross, Christ our Mediator offers his own body and blood, bringing an end to the malodorous stench of sin-death and inaugurating the fragrance of life.

Grace in Response. Without going into the details of today’s Gospel reading, Matthew records the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard to remind Jewish Christians (those who have labored all day in the vineyard) not to be envious when Gentile Christians (those who have only labored for the last hour the day) receive the same wage, a metaphor for the promise of life in the Kingdom of Heaven. In Paul’s terms, there is the grace of being raised from the dead (Jews becoming alive to their true inheritance through the coming of Christ as Messiah) and there is the grace of being called from non-being to being (Gentiles being brought from totally outside the sphere of God’s redemptive work). This parable is Matthew’s version of Luke’s Parable of the Prodigal Son. It’s a reminder to us not to envy grace given to others, but to be grateful for the grace that’s been lavished on us. Praise be to the God whose grace raises the dead and brings into being that which was not—and robs either side of any boast save one, “Let those who boast, boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:31).

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Trust in the Giver - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 6/25/2024 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; Psalm 100; Numbers 16:20-35; Romans 4:1-12; Matthew 19:23-30

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) 

Although today’s readings present a range of situations, they unite in pressing one issue: trust. Trust is the question throughout this week’s readings. In fact, believing God is the most pressing of issues throughout the Bible.

Image: Pixabay

Romans. “Abraham believed God,” says Paul, in Romans 4:3, quoting Genesis 15:6. On its face, that seems to be an utterly simple statement. Yet it is profoundly complex. In the eyes of Paul the apostle, God’s promise of a numberless “seed” and a vast nation—the promise Abraham is credited with having believed all the way back in Genesis—turns out to be anything but simple. Millennia after the fact, Paul realizes that the promise that Abraham believed included a specific “Seed”—Jesus Christ—whose life, death, and resurrection have now brought forgiveness of sins for the whole world. Not only that, but Jesus brings the beginning of the undoing of the treasonous and ruinous unbelief of the Garden. Abraham’s simple decision to trust God has worked incalculable good. And Paul urges us toward a faith like that of Abraham, “the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised” (Romans 4:11-12). In other words, Abraham is the ancestor of all who trust God, whether Gentile or Jew. 

Numbers. Korah and company’s fantasies about Egypt seem plausible to a congregation wearied of the wilderness’s hardships. Trusting God is something they just cannot do. At Korah’s challenge to their authority, Moses and Aaron beg Yahweh to limit punishment to the instigators of this rebellion of unbelief. So the congregation as a whole must choose whether to stand with the rebels and perish, or trust their appointed leaders, Moses and Aaron, and live. In today’s passage, they make a good choice. The people stand with Moses and Aaron. In tomorrow’s passage, they will revert to mistrust, accusing Moses and Aaron, “You have killed the people of the Lord.” 

In their turn, Moses and Aaron trust that their vindication lies not in power politics and clever maneuvering against their attackers, but in simply submitting to Yahweh’s power to sort the evil from the good. 

Matthew. For rich people, according to Jesus, the question is whether to trust the gifts or the Giver. Reflecting this very teaching, Paul will later urge Timothy to warn rich Christians not “to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life” (1 Timothy 6:17-18). 

May you, like Abraham, trust God’s promise for peace with him now and a sure future to come through Jesus Christ.

May you, like Moses and Aaron, trust God even when you are weary from hardships or difficulties that discourage you. 

May you, at Jesus’s invitation, trust in the wealth that comes from knowing him. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

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

Monday • 6/24/2024 •

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)

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.

Image: Pixabay

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+