Trust the One Who Is Right - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 9/12/2025 •
Friday of the Thirteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 18) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 40; Psalm 54; 1 Kings 18:20–40; Philippians 3:1–16; Matthew 3:1–12 

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 in the Season After Pentecost. We are in Proper 18 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Being right vs. being made right. Somewhere along the way when I was growing up, I picked up the notion that I always had to be right. I had to know the answers, and I had to be 100% right about them. I lost a spelling bee in the fifth grade, and to this day, every occasion for using that word is an occasion to relive that crushing moment. If I got a 98% on a quiz, I would argue with my teacher for that additional 2%.  

For other people, the issues may be different: being the prettiest, being the star jock, being the “baddest,” or coming off as the wealthiest. It is all so exhausting. No wonder so many just give up.  

I gave up, too, because just at the point of exhaustion Paul’s words from today’s passage met me: “…that I may be found in him, not having my own righteousness…” (Philippians 3:9). Just when it began to occur to me that I would never know enough to justify my existence by always being right, along came Paul with a better claim than mine (“as to righteousness under the law, blameless”—Philippians 3:6). He said it was all garbage (actually, his term skubala means excrement). Skubala compared to “the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). And that, finally, was good enough for me, too.  

It was freeing to realize I didn’t have to justify my existence by being right all the time — which, ironically, gave me the freedom to pursue knowledge better. I had to trust the one who is right and who makes right: “…not having my own righteousness that comes from the law, but one that comes through (to render the Greek more literally) faith of Christ…” (Philippians 3:9).  

This phrase “faith of Christ” for Paul is multivalent—it is deep and fraught with meaning.  

In the first place, Paul means that Christ exercised faith towards God, and faithfully represented God on this earth. He knew his heavenly Father, and he was thus the first human to get God right. He believed his mission—set in eternity—was, in the thought-frame of Isaiah 53, death unto life. It was, on the one hand, to pour himself out to death, to bear the sin of many, to make intercession for transgressors, and therefore, on the other hand, to make many righteous, to find satisfaction in his knowledge, to see his offspring, to prolong his days, to be allotted a portion with the great, and to divide the spoil with the strong (Isaiah 53:8–12). Here on the earth as a man, Jesus trusted God to the point of allowing himself to die a criminal’s death for a world of criminals. He knew his Father’s promise to vindicate him by raising him up, and through him, to grant resurrection life to all who took refuge in him.  

Which takes us to the other side of “faith”: our faith in him. Our trusting that his death is ours. His death pays for our sins, sets a pattern for our giving up our own interests for the sake of others, and calls us to share in his sufferings. Faith is also our trusting that his resurrection likewise means our resurrection. It brings the birth of “the new man” within us, means the onboard presence of the living Christ in our lives, and promises that at the renewal of all things our very bodies will be made new like his.  

The bonus is that those who are “found in him” and who let go of everything else as so much skubala often find him giving much of it back. In him, those things are no longer worthless filth, but gifts that have been reclaimed, refurbished, redeemed, and ready to be used to his glory and for the welfare of others: whether smarts or looks or athletic prowess or moxie or resources. “For,” as Paul says elsewhere, “all things are yours, … the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God” (1 Corinthians 1:21b,22b,23).  

Collect for Proper 18: Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

God Is in Control - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 9/11/2025 •
Thursday of the Thirteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 18) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 50; 1 Kings 18:1–19; Philippians 2:12–30; Matthew 2:13–23 

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. On this Thursday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 18 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

God Is in Control  

In my view, one of the most striking vistas in all Israel is to be found at the summit of the Herodium, a hill in the Judean desert three miles southeast of Bethlehem that, according to Josephus the first century Jewish historian, King Herod the Great had had his engineers artificially make taller and “rounded off in the shape of a breast” (Josephus). The Herodium is most famous as Herod’s likely burial site. When you stand at the top of the Herodium and look northwest, you discover you are looking right down on Bethlehem, the place of Jesus’s birth and of the slaying of the innocents.  

Shortly before his own death from a consuming internal disease, and frantically trying to keep his hold on this life and his rule, King Herod had ordered the slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1–12). In addition to trying to kill the newborn infant he saw as a rival, Herod had ordered the rounding up of Jewish leaders. He had commanded that they be killed at his death, to ensure that there would be mourning throughout Israel upon his demise. Fortunately, his orders were reversed when he did in fact die, leading to much relief and celebration.  

It’s not difficult to imagine Herod’s funeral procession bringing his bier right past Bethlehem on its way to its burial place from Herod’s palace in Jericho a few miles away. Right past Bethlehem, and within earshot of mothers still bewailing the massacre of their babies. Mourning in Israel indeed, except as prophesied as part of God’s redemptive design, not as part of Herod’s maniacal narcissism:  

“A voice was heard in Ramah, 
    wailing and loud lamentation, 
Rachel weeping for her children; 
    she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:18).  

Thing is: God’s inexorable salvific plan rolls on. Pharaoh had failed to snuff out the life of baby Moses, and he rose to bring God’s people out of Egyptian slavery. Herod fails to snuff out the life of baby Jesus, for his parents whisk him away to Egypt. And as one like unto but greater than Moses, Jesus will return to “fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son’” (Matthew 2:15; Hosea 11:1).  

It’s good to keep in mind that God is always working behind the scenes in the most disastrous of circumstances, and that in the long run his goodness will prevail.  

Elijah’s time in exile and the miraculous way he sees God take care of the widow of Zarephath prepares him for his confrontation with Ahab and the priests of Baal. Obadiah, though a lover of Yahweh, finds himself in charge of the court of militantly pagan Ahab’s court. Elijah calls upon him to risk “outing” himself by announcing Elijah’s coming.   

From prison, Paul has to learn to trust that the Lord will use the power of his words and his prayers to help believers do the dance between their responsibility to “work out your salvation” and to trust “God who is at work within you” (Philippians 2:12–13). He has to trust that people will see in his emissaries Timothy and Epaphroditus Christlike examples of what it is to “hold fast to the word of life” and to “shine like stars in the world,” even “in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation” (Philippians 2:15).  

The challenge is ever before us. We may face monstrous egos like Herod or Ahab, with the misery they create for everybody around them. We may cope with difficult providences like Paul, which would seem to limit any influence we could have for good. Or we may even be called like Obadiah to do what seems crazy—literally or metaphorically suicidal. Nonetheless, we can trust—truly trust—that, as Twila Paris sings, “God is in Control”: 

This is no time for fear 
This is a time for faith and determination 
Don’t lose the vision here 
Carried away by emotion 
Hold on to all that you hide in your heart 
There is one thing that has always been true 
It holds the world together 
 
God is in control 
We believe that His children will not be forsaken 
God is in control 
We will choose to remember and never be shaken 
There is no power above or beside Him, we know 
God is in control, oh God is in control 
 
History marches on 
There is a bottom line drawn across the ages 
Culture can make its plan 
Oh, but the line never changes 
No matter how the deception may fly 
There is one thing that has always been true 
It will be true forever 

He has never let you down 
Why start to worry now? 
He is still the Lord of all we see 
And He is still the loving Father 
Watching over you and me 
Watching over you, watching over me, 
Watching over… 
Every little sparrow, every little thing, 
Oh, God is in control! 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Embrace Life Himself - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 9/10/2025 •
Wednesday of the Thirteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 18) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:49–72; 1 Kings 17:1–24; Philippians 2:1–11; Matthew 2:1–12 

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

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 in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 18 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Many, if not most, scholars of Paul’s letters believe that Philippians 2:6–11 is an early Christian hymn, whether Paul is quoting it from a song already in use in the church or composing it himself. In most modern Bibles, these verses are laid out in poetic form.  

From Philippians on, Paul’s writings show more and more traces of hymnic features. His articulation of Christ’s majesty becomes more evident in these later letters: Philippians, Colossians, and Ephesians, but I’d also add at least 1 Timothy and Titus to letters that develop more of Paul’s “high Christology.”   

It’s as though the longer Paul contemplates the goodness of the good news of redemption from sin, the more captivated he becomes by the wonder of what has been done for us—and by Whom it has been done. Praise rises reflexively.  

Image: Adapted from "Ctrl + Z" by michalska1 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 

The vista that opens before us in Philippians 2 is breathtaking. In the Garden of Eden, though bearing God’s breath within them and though given the godlike task of overseeing and nurturing life on the earth, Adam and Eve did not consider it enough. They grasped after a knowledge that was on a par with God’s own.  

Add to that Herod the Great from today’s reading in Matthew. Herod is a perfect embodiment of the same self-idolatrous striving. We know from historians outside the Bible that Herod dies of a wasting and consuming internal disease not long after Jesus’s birth. When the magi from the East inform him they have come to hail a new king, Herod pushes against the inevitability of his being dethroned, not just by another king, but by death itself.  

In one elegant turn of phrase in Philippians 2, Paul describes how Jesus Christ counters the idolatrous drive that took root in Adam and Eve and that has manifested itself in all the Herods—in fact, in all of us—ever since:  

… though he was in the form of God, … (Philippians 2:6a). In fact, Paul had come to recognize that he had to make room in his confession of the oneness of God (“Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one”—Deuteronomy 6:4) for the full divinity of God’s Son (Romans 9:5; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:15–17;2:2–3; Titus 2:13). 

… did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself  … (Philippians 2:6–7a). The divine Second Person of the Trinity lowered himself to take on our estate that he might raise us up from the brokenness and decay to which our foolishness, our pride, and our self-exaltation had lowered us.  

What is especially lovely about Paul’s articulation of this profound truth is that he puts it out there for us in order to inculcate among us that same mindset and attitude: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” To that end, he introduces his hymn to Christ by exhorting: oneness of mind, mutual love, fullness of accord, abandonment of selfish ambition or conceit: “in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:2–6). Be to each other as Christ is to each of us.  

To step into the richness of today’s verses from Paul is to yield ourselves to singing praise vibrantly and to living love boldly. It is to lift hands in worship and extend arms in service. It is to bend our minds and hearts towards one another, looking to find agreement rather than disagreement. It is to serve, rather than to be served. It is to take our place in the grand undoing—the reversal of depravity, decay, death, and destruction—that Christ came to accomplish here on earth. It is to embrace life itself by embracing Life himself.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Scripture’s Perspective - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 9/9/2025 •
Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 18) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 45; 1 Kings 16:23–34; Philippians 1:12–30; Mark 16:1–8 

For further thoughts on Mark 16:1–8, see the DDD for 4/13/2020, Monday of Easter Week, Year 2: https://tinyurl.com/ddwhntnf 

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 Tuesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 18 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Mark’s challenging ending. Whether by the providence of a longer ending having been been lost (as some theorize) or by Mark’s own design, the best ending of Mark’s gospel is Mark 16:1–8. It’s an odd ending, because it records the witnesses to the empty tomb leaving it in fear: “They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (Mark 16:8).  

Either way, we readers know exactly what those first witnesses knew: a) Jesus is God’s Son (Mark 1:1, etc.); b) he has given his life as a ransom for our sin (Mark 10:45); c) we have been told he has risen from the dead and has told us to “meet him in Galilee” (Mark 16:6–7); and d) he has told us our life is now to consist of both suffering for and testifying to God’s kingdom (Mark 13:10,19,24).  

The question the empty grave poses for Mark’s original readers (and for us) is whether we will answer its call to meet the Risen Christ in our own Galilee. Even if we are “seized” by the same “terror and amazement” that struck the first witnesses to the empty tomb, we, just as they, can expect Jesus to offer us our share in his cross and in the venture of taking his message to the world.  

Image: Adapted from photo byAudreyYu. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. https://audrey-shark.blogspot.com/2014/05/trip-to-rome-encounter-with-st-paul.htm  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License 

Paul on living and dying. Imprisoned in Rome for testifying to Jesus, Paul provides a profound perspective on sharing Christ’s cross while taking his message to the world. Paul’s attitude is wondrous. He knows that his presence in a Roman prison has become a great conversation starter all over the city. Some Christians, out of love for him, share the good news of Christ eagerly. Other Christians, out of spite for him, do the same thing—but hoping to make his situation worse. Paul only cares that people are hearing about Christ, whether it improves his prospects of liberation from jail, or not. One of his more memorable or axiomatic statements is this: “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21 NASB).   

Here’s the gist of Paul’s saying: “I’m OK in either case, no matter how this turns out. If my Christian friends are successful in making Christ more attractive in Caesar’s courts, and if that leads to my release, then I will have more opportunity to live for Christ and tell others about him. If my (Christian!) enemies successfully irritate people by talking about Christ so much that it leads to my martyrdom, that’s all the better. It’s gain for me, because it means I enter the nearer presence of the Lord. It’s a win-win for me.”  

I can only hope for half this confidence, half this equilibrium for myself, but I am so grateful these words are here in Scripture to stimulate, stir up, and inspire. We have been given the privilege of knowing the Lord and suffering for him: “For to you  it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to  suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29). We stand in a long line of those who have counted themselves blessed with this dual honor: to know Christ and to suffer for and with him (see Philippians 3:10).  

1 Kings on appearance and reality. What a contrast with King Omri, and the line that he establishes in Israel. In terms of secular history and to all outward appearances, Omri’s brief twelve-year reign is successful. His rise ends a half century of civil war in the northern kingdom. He establishes a stunningly beautiful new capital, he makes alliances with surrounding kingdoms that bring regional stability, and he establishes a royal line that oversees prosperity and relative peace. But it is corrupt to the core, at least by biblical standards. Jezebel, the wife he secures for his son and successor Ahab, is a zealous and evangelizing devotee of Baal and Asherah. She will lead Israel further into idolatry. And the Bible’s verdict on Ahab’s twenty-two-year reign is that he “did evil in the sight of the  Lord  more than all who were before him” (1 Kings 16:30). This verdict comes, despite Ahab’s reign being, according to archaeological evidence, the most prosperous and powerful years of Israel’s existence as a kingdom separate from Judah.  

Scripture’s perspective is utterly amazing and radically challenging: Omri and Ahab, who thrive on their thrones, Scripture deems failures, while Paul, who writes from prison, Scripture considers a success. Indeed, if the tomb is empty because Christ is risen, as Mark knows it is, then everything is upside down: by dying we live, to bring news of true life to those whose existence is but a walking death.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Grace Wins - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 9/8/2025 •
Monday of the Thirteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 18)  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 41; Psalm 52; 1 Kings 13:1–10; Philippians 1:1–11; Mark 15:40–47 

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 Monday in the Season After Pentecost our readings finds us in Proper 18 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

1 Kings: rivalry kills. While Israel’s secession from union with Judah answers to a long-standing rivalry between the northern and the southern tribes, the writers of Scripture consider disunity among the redeemed to be contrary to God’s plan for a united family, nation, and kingdom. In particular, the narrator of the Samuel and Kings narrativesw, writing during the exile, looks to the day when Israel and Judah will be reunited back in the Land of Promise, with a rebuilt temple under a Davidic king.  

A powerful feature of today’s brief passage in 1 Kings 13 is the recording of the prophesy by the anonymous prophet from the south against Jeroboam (922–901 B.C.), the first of the kings of breakaway Israel. The prophet has traveled north to denounce the idolatrous altar Jeroboam has built at Bethel for the purpose of discouraging people from traveling south to worship in Jerusalem in the kingdom of Judah. Some 300 years in advance, the prophet names Josiah (640–609 B.C.) as the Judean king who will come and tear this altar down. The prophecy even looks forward to the detail of Josiah burning the bones of the priests who serve Jeroboam’s idolatrous purposes there—which Josiah fulfills in precise detail (2 Kings 23:15–19).   

Image: Adapted from © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro / CC BY-SA 4.0 

Philippians: grace wins. Over the course of this week, we will read most of the apostle Paul’s epistle to the Philippians. With Paul’s ministry, and with the New Testament as a whole, life and history have turned a corner. In grace, God has come himself in the person of his Son to give his own life, so that all our idolatrous altars may be torn down, and so that the ashes of our old selves who worshiped at these altars may be burned.  

A powerful exemplar of this grace is the apostle Paul, namesake of that King Saul who had been displaced by David and David’s line (Saul/Paul in fact descends from King Saul’s tribe—see Philippians 3:5). By the blood of the cross and because of the risen Christ’s appearing to him, Paul finds himself an emissary of the good news of God’s plan to heal the breach between God and us and the divisions among ourselves.  

While he awaits his first trial in Rome, Paul writes a letter of thanks to the Philippians, one of his churches back in northern Greece. It is here, in Philippi, that the gospel had first been planted on European soil during the second missionary journey (Acts 16). With this group of believers Paul has enjoyed an especially warm relationship, and he wants them to know of his gratitude for that relationship and for their ongoing financial support of his ministry.  

“From the first day to now” they have been partners (koinōnoi) with Paul in gospel ministry. In the fellowship of this ministry, everybody is a “saint” (Philippians 1:1), no matter their story or place of origin. A person may be a Jew, whether of Saul/Paul’s tribe or another. Or they may be a Gentile of any demographic (perhaps a female merchant of purple finery, or a slave girl delivered of a divining spirit, or a jailer baptized at Paul’s miraculous release—see Acts 16:14–34). Regardless, they are all “saints,” that is, people made holy in God’s sight.  

Among them there are no rival kings. There is no spirit of Jeroboam-like idolatry or Rehoboam-like cruelty. Instead, they are fellow citizens of “the heavenly commonwealth” (to politeuma en ouranois, Philippians 3:21), who are learning, through the servant-leadership of “bishops and deacons,” how to “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility [to] regard others as better than [them]selves” (Philippians 1:1; 2:3).  

Collect for Proper 18. Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Promises Kept - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 9/5/2025 •
Friday of the Twelfth Week After Pentecost (Proper 17) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 31; 1 Kings 11:26–43; James 4:13–5:6; Mark 15:22–32 

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 in the Season After Pentecost. We are in Proper 17 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

1 Kings: a kingdom divided against itself. Solomon’s loyalty is split between Yahweh, on the one hand, and Astarte, Chemosh, and Milcom, on the other (1 Kings 11:33). His divided heart yields a divided kingdom. From Abraham to Moses to David, God has been nurturing a singular family, kingdom, and nation through which to restore all that humankind had lost in the Garden of Eden. But Solomon’s spiritual schizophrenia means God’s people relive the calamity of that original fall. Solomon has listened to the hiss of the serpent—the many-headed hydra of this god and that god. His kingdom will be divided into faithless Israel in the north and semi-faithful Judah in the south (stay tuned).  

Inspired by a prophetic word, Jeroboam (at first, one of Solomon’s chief slave-drivers—1 Kings 11:26–28) rebels against Solomon’s son and heir, Rehoboam. Jeroboam is even presented as something of a Moses figure, who goes into exile in Egypt and then returns to Israel to relieve people oppressed by Rehoboam’s continuation of Solomon’s use of forced labor (1 Kings 11:39; 12:2–5).  

The Lord takes ten northern tribes “from the hand of Solomon” and gives them to Jeroboam, leaving two southern tribes (Judah and Benjamin) with Rehoboam. Jeroboam introduces into the new northern kingdom of Israel worse syncretism than Solomon’s: he immediately establishes “high places” expressly to serve as centers of worship to displace Jerusalem (1 Kings 12:28–29). He even repeats the sin of Aaron by erecting at his high places golden calves and repeating that first generation’s idolatrous, “Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (1 Kings 12:28).  

In the southern kingdom of Judah, Rehoboam’s response is hardly godly or kingly. The underside of Solomon’s building success had been his extensive use of forced labor (see 1 Kings 4:6; 5:13,14; 9:15–22). Rather than back away from the injustice, Rehoboam threatens to rule even more harshly: “My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. Now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions” (1 Kings 12:10b–11).  

Idolatry and cruelty: we are reliving Adam and Eve’s treachery and Cain’s viciousness. The one bright spot is that Yahweh says he “will punish the descendants of David, but not forever” (1 Kings 11:39). The LORD has made promises, and he will keep them.  

Mark sees promises kept. “[B]ut not forever….” Those wonderful words sustain faithful believers through the following years of divided monarchy, exile, and return. All the way to the day when Mark writes of David’s true son and heir: “It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, ‘The King of the Jews’” (Mark 15:25–26). Unbeknownst to everyone, the macabre scene unfolding at Calvary marks the day God’s “but not forever” comes to fruition. This is the day the punishment ends, absorbed in the thorn-crowned brow, the nail-scarred hands and feet, and the spear-pierced breast of Jesus Christ.  

In the Garden of Eden, in the same breath with which God pronounces judgment against serpent, woman, and man, he also promises reversal of the fall, vindication of his purposes, and salvation for sinners: “[the woman’s seed] will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15). The reign of idolatry and cruelty that Adam and Eve unleash and to which Solomon and Jeroboam and Rehoboam become accomplices are not the endless fate of the human race.  

On the cross of Calvary, the heel of the woman’s seed is indeed struck, and that redemptively. For on the cross of Calvary “David’s Son and David’s Lord … gives his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 12:35–37; 10:45). On the cross of Calvary, the head of the serpent is struck, and that definitively; for on the cross hangs the end of idolatry and cruelty. On the cross hangs the hope of the world. On the cross hangs eternal life for you and for me.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Obey God's Word - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 9/4/2025 •
Thursday of the Twelfth Week After Pentecost (Proper 17) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 37; 1 Kings 11:1–13; James 3:13–4:12; Mark 15:12–21 

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

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. On this Thursday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 17 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Maybe I’ve been reading the Bible for too many years, but I don’t often find myself being stopped in my tracks and weeping over the foibles of one of the characters. But today it happened as I read about Solomon’s fall.  

Deficit of love. Solomon bore the name of love. His parents’ special name for him was not Solomon (which, of course, means “Peace”). David and Bathsheba’s pet name for him, given by the prophet Nathan on behalf of Yahweh himself, was “Jedidiah” (which means “Beloved of Yah”; see 2 Samuel 12:25). The LORD’s deepest wish for him was that he know, regardless of the sinfulness of his parents’ early choices, he was himself an expression of God’s love. 

If the Song of Songs is any indication, Solomon learned how to translate divine love into human love. But somewhere along the way, a deficit emerges. He longs for a kind of love that it takes 700 wives and 300 concubines to satisfy. No matter how many of these relationships may have been established for the sake of political alliances (and that was probably many, many of them), Solomon sought in them something more. He was looking for love. “King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh… Solomon clung to these in love” (1 Kings 11:1a,2b). There’s a certain desperation in a man who “clings” to 1,000 women in love.  

Image: King Solomon, Simeon Solomon, 1872 or 1874.National Gallery of Art , CC0, via Wikimedia Commons 

What was missing for Solomon? Did he, after all, not know what it was to be “beloved of Yah”? Of course, I don’t hold the Rosetta Stone to Solomon’s heart. However, I do have to ask myself: Is the Lord’s love enough for me? 

Disobedience to God’s Word. Sometimes, as simplistic as it seems, the sheer willingness and determination to obey God’s Word can keep us from going off the rails. Even if we’re not sure why we’re told to do what we’re told to do, obedience can save our life. It goes for stopping at red lights, paying our taxes, not cheating on our spouse, following the training manual on an assembly line.  

Most especially, it goes for paying attention to God’s “Thou shalt nots…” and his “Thou shalts.” The history of the human race would have taken a different course if Adam and Eve had simply shrugged off the serpent’s, “Hast God really said?” If they’d said, “He hast indeed, Slithering One. That is good enough for us. Now, slitherest thou off.”  

If only Solomon had said, “All those marriages and concubinages make political sense. They might promise delights, and they might satisfy the deficit in my heart. But my Lord and Sovereign, who loves me more, who loves me better, and who therefore owns my heart—he says in his Word, ‘You shall not enter into marriage with them … for they will surely incline your heart to follow their gods.’ So.I.just.won’t.do.it.”  

If only. For us, there stands the perennial challenge: When our heart inclines in one direction, and God’s Word points definitively in another, to which inclination will we yield? Jesus, give us grace! 

Drift over time. The especially chilling words in today’s portion of Solomon’s story are these: “For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David” (1 Kings 11:4 emphasis added).  

Like moisture that seeps into the walls of a house and, gradually and invisibly, creates deadly mold, Solomon’s faithlessness in marriage created faithlessness in his own Divine Marriage. As young poet, Solomon composes Song of Songs’s celebration of romance between husband and wife; his love song serves as a sacramental portrait of love between Yahweh-as-Lover and Israel-as-Beloved. But as Solomon follows a different trajectory over time, adding wife after wife and concubine after concubine, he opens his heart to false god after false god. Without even realizing it, his very identity gets buried in a flurry of promiscuous trysts with pagan divinities. The consequences for the people whom Solomon is called to love and serve are grave. In the next generation, the kingdom will be torn in two, just as he had allowed his own heart to be torn between Yahweh and the bevy of deities he had cultivated.  

James and spiritual adultery. Solomon has become the kind of double-minded spiritual adulterer that James takes on in today’s epistle reading (James 4:4,8). James warns such a person, “Adulterers! Do you not know that whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God?” (James 4:4). I find myself wishing that James could have time-traveled back to Solomon’s day and urged him to repent of the drift of his heart and turn back wholeheartedly to God, or, as he urges us: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:8–10).  

Mark: Jesus stands in our place. We are left with the hope of the Cross. Jesus bears abuse and false condemnation, ready to stand in judgment’s place for all the Solomon-likeness in us, crippled as we may be by a deficit of love, cavalierly (or neglectfully) disobeying God’s commands, or drifting into spiritual adultery. His pain, our gain. Praise be. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+   

Jesus Shall Reign - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 9/3/2025 •
Wednesday of the Twelfth Week After Pentecost (Proper 17) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 38; 1 Kings 9:24–10:13; James 3:1–12; Mark 15:1–11 

For comments on James 3:1–12, see the DDD for 11/17/2020, Tuesday of Proper 28, Year Two https://tinyurl.com/ysn7n6rn 

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 in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 17 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Solomon’s reign represents a high point in Israel’s worship and therefore of Israel’s history, as we’ve seen in Solomon’s building and dedication of the temple. But the life Israel enjoyed under God’s care was not intended just for Israel. Yahweh told Abraham that he was to be a blessing to the nations (Genesis 12). Today’s reading shows how that promise reaches a certain fulfillment in Solomon’s day.  

Image: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston , Domenico Veneziano,The Meeting of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, ca. 1473. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

“Now when the queen of Sheba (probably modern Yemen) heard about the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD, she came to test him with difficult questions” (1 Kings 10:1 NASB). The result of her inquiries and of her survey of Solomon's accomplishments, bounty, and worship is that she confesses Yahweh for herself: “Blessed be the LORD your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel! Because the LORD loved Israel forever, he has made you king, that you may execute justice and righteousness” (1 Kings 10:9).  

A companion piece to this portion of Scripture is Psalm 72. This psalm’s heading suggests it comes from Solomon himself. If so, Psalm 72 is an elegant expression of his aspiration: to be the locus of Yahweh’s benevolent rule over humankind. Justice prevails under wise administration. Rulers from around the globe (Seba to the south, Tarshish to the west) bring their tribute, just as the queen of Sheba has. And through his anointed king, Yahweh reigns over the whole earth.  

The actuality of Solomon’s reign, of course, falls short. The rest of 1 Kings 10 describes an amassing of wealth, and specifically of horses, that directly violates limits that the law of Moses had laid out (compare 1 Kings 10:14–17, with Deuteronomy 17:16–17b). And beginning with tomorrow’s reading in 1 Kings 11, we will see how Solomon’s love for Yahweh becomes diluted by his love for the various gods of his many wives (with 1 Kings 11, compare Deuteronomy 17:17a). Disaster will befall the nation: first division, then alien invasion and exile.  

Jesus and the prophets’ messianic vision. But the brief glimpse of Israel living into its calling to be a holy nation and a people of God’s treasured and special possession, defined by love of God and of neighbor, gives the prophets a vision of a true and final realization of that to which Solomon aspired. Messiah, a better son of David, will come, and he will rule a New Jerusalem with the faithfulness and righteousness that eluded Solomon … because God has promised that it will be so:  

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; 
authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named 
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 
His authority shall grow continually,  
and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. 
He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness 
    from this time onward and forevermore. 
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. 
(Isaiah 9:6–7; and see also 45:14; 60:6–7) 

Jesus himself recalls the visit of the queen of Sheba: “she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here!” (Matthew 12:42). In Jesus, says the apostle Paul, are embodied and made available to us “wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). The fulfillment in Jesus of all that is good in Solomon is captured nowhere better than in “Jesus Shall Reign,” Isaac Watts’s (1674–1748) Christ-centered adaptation of Psalm 72: 

Jesus shall reign where’er the sun does its successive journeys run, 
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and wane no more. 

To him shall endless prayer be made, and praises throng to crown his head. 
His name like sweet perfume shall rise with every morning sacrifice. 

People and realms of every tongue dwell on his love with sweetest song, 
And infant voices shall proclaim their early blessings on his name 

Blessings abound where’er he reigns: the prisoners leap to lose their chains, 
The weary find eternal rest, and all who suffer want are blest. 

Let every creature rise and bring honors peculiar to our King, 
Angels descend with songs again, and earth repeat the loud Amen! 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Clear the Deck and Start Anew - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 9/2/2025 •
Tuesday of the Twelfth Week After Pentecost (Proper 17) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 26; Psalm 28; 1 Kings 8:65–9:9; James 2:14–26; Mark 14:66–72 

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 Tuesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 17 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

It’s not for no reason that the Office of Morning Prayer includes this daily invitation to confession: “And so that we may prepare ourselves in heart and mind to worship him, let us kneel in silence, and with penitent and obedient hearts confess our sins, that we may obtain forgiveness by his infinite goodness and mercy.”  

We all—all of us—carry within ourselves an outsized capacity for self-deception and rebellion against the God who loves us and cares for us. So, each morning we are invited to clear the deck, and start afresh.  

Image: The Denial of St Peter, Gerard Seghers  1591-1651. oil on canvas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

Each of today’s readings invites reflection on a potential soft spot: divided loyalty (Solomon), dead orthodoxy (James), and cowardly betrayal (Peter).  

Solomon and divided loyalty. I once heard it said, “Saul had no heart for God, David had a whole heart for God, and Solomon had half a heart for God.” The saying lacks nuance, but it captures some broad truths. Especially when it comes to Solomon.  

Yahweh appears to Solomon in the same fashion he had earlier in 1 Kings 3 when Solomon had wisely asked for, and had received, wisdom. Now, on the heels of the spectacular successes and blessings of the building of God’s temple and “the king’s house and all that Solomon desired to build” (1 Kings 9:1), Yahweh comes to him again. He comes to remind Solomon of where all the goodness comes from. He wants Solomon to know that he does not have the option of giving part of his heart to the Lord, while allowing the rest of his heart to “go and serve other gods and worship them” (2 Kings 9:6). The consequences of such duplicity will be grave: “I will cut Israel off from the land that I have given them” (1 Kings 9:7,8). The beautiful temple will become a heap of ruins, and Solomon will make of Israel an object lesson in bad things happening to bad people.  

Solomon’s story will indeed take the bad turn Yahweh warns him about. His story is told so your story and my story don’t have to. Lord, have mercy.  

James and dead orthodoxy. James pokes a finger in the eye of those of us who hide cold and unloving hearts behind correctly articulated theological statements. James anticipates the saying of my teacher and colleague John Frame: “Theology is application.” James’s and Professor Frame’s point is that your true theology is what you live. Lex vivendi lex credendi. “The law of living is the law of believing.” Our only justification for calling ourselves God’s children is that we show it in our lives!” Lord, have mercy! 

Peter and cowardly betrayal. Unlike the person (whether real or imagined) that James is sparring with, Peter wants to do better—he really does. When Peter turns coward and denies even knowing Jesus, his mouth doesn’t run contrary to his heart, but it does run ahead of his heart. Nor is there any Solomonic half-heartedness here. We know he’s “all in”—but until Pentecost and the baptism, indwelling, and empowering of the Spirit of God, it’s clear that he’s simply not ready to back up brave words. There’s a good lesson there for every one of us. Lord, have mercy! 

Whether it’s for our half-heartedness, our pretense, our bluster, or whatever, it is always good to start the day this way:  

Most merciful God, 
we confess that we have sinned against you 
in thought, word, and deed, 
by what we have done, 
and by what we have left undone. 
We have not loved you with our whole heart; 
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. 
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. 
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, 
have mercy on us and forgive us; 
that we may delight in your will, 
and walk in your ways, 
to the glory of your Name. Amen. 

We can pray that way because we know that in the God of the Bible is infinite mercy and readiness to forgive.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

The King Came as Pauper - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 9/1/2025 •
Monday of the Twelfth Week After Pentecost (Proper 17)  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 25; 2 Chronicles 6:32–7:7; James 2:1–13; Mark 14:53–65 

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 Monday in the Season After Pentecost our readings finds us in Proper 17 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Solomon’s temple prayer, especially as described in 2 Chronicles, represents the summit of Israel’s life. The Shekinah glory cloud had protected Israel at the crossing of the Red Sea. It had appeared over Mt. Sinai at the giving of the law, indwelt the tabernacle, and accompanied Israel throughout the wilderness wanderings. Now the Shekinah glory cloud descends in such effulgence at the close of Solomon’s prayer that the priests can’t even enter the temple, and “all the people of Israel bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying, ‘For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever’” (2 Chronicles 7:3; see the refrain in Psalm 136).  

At this most sublime and transcendent moment of convergence between heaven and earth, two things stand out to me. First is the fact that, on his knees and with outstretched hands, Solomon prays that Yahweh would hear and answer at the different points of need in his people’s lives: “hear and forgive” (2 Chronicles 6:21). Hear and forgive when his people sin and face various consequences—from returning restitution, coming under attack from enemies, undergoing famine or pestilence, or going into exile. Hear and forgive in sickness, or in any sort of suffering or need. Hear and forgive, “let your eyes be open and your ears attentive to prayer from this place” (2 Chronicles 6:40). Solomon adds a gorgeous coda from Psalm 132:8–10: “Let your priests be clothed with salvation, and let your faithful rejoice in your goodness.”  

Second is God’s gracious response. Yahweh appears in the Shekinah glory cloud with fire. The fire consumes the sacrifices, not the people (2 Chronicles 7:1). The consuming fire of judgment falls not on his sinful people, but on their substitutes. In answer, thankful worship—loud and exuberant musical worship—breaks out. No wonder God’s people are inveterate singers and music-makers (2 Chronicles 7:3–6). Yahweh hears and forgives!  

Then we turn to Mark’s Gospel. In utter mockery of the prayer that Yahweh’s priests would be clothed with salvation, the high priest, the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes have gathered in the rebuilt temple precincts to look for a reason to condemn Jesus of Nazareth to death. They should be singing (centuries in advance), “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail th’ incarnate Deity!” But they can’t see what’s right in front of their very eyes. The high priest demands to know: “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” (Mark 14:61). 

And though Jesus has been reticent in Mark’s Gospel to disclose his identity, he acknowledges (I paraphrase): “Indeed, I am the divine-human Son of Man of whom Daniel had a vision. And I am about to come into the heavenly courts to receive all power and dominion at the right hand of God Almighty” (Mark 14:62). They condemn him as a blasphemer worthy of death. At least they have rightly heard his claim.  

James highlights for us what folly if it would be to get Jesus’s identity “right” (correctly confessing him as “our glorious Lord Jesus Christ”) but to fail to see how that truth turns the world’s values on their head. To do so would be to get Jesus all “wrong.” The King came as pauper, and in doing so raised paupers to royalty. His followers are followers of “the royal law,” and that law calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves—especially those who most resemble his own appearance among us. Not high and mighty, but lowly and humble. To fail to give special honor to the least among us is to fail to give honor to him. Therein lies the “law of liberty”: the path to freedom from being controlled by appetites of greed, avarice, materialism, and status.  

Collect for Proper 17. Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

For reflections on the opening chapter of James’s epistle, see these DDDs: 

James 1:1–15 on 11/12/2020, Thursday of Proper 27, Year Two  https://tinyurl.com/p7ez9f76 

James 1:16–27 on 11/13/2020, Friday of Proper 27, Year Two https://tinyurl.com/3aky47vn 

Solomon Prepares - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 8/29/2025 •
Friday of the Eleventh Week After Pentecost (Proper 16) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 16; Psalm 17; 1 Kings 5:1–6:1,7; Acts 28:1–16; Mark 14:27–42 

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

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 in the Season After Pentecost. We are in Proper 16 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

1 Kings describes Solomon’s preparations for the building of the temple as a realization of Yahweh’s gift of wisdom: “So the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him” (1 Kings 5:12). Accordingly, it is flabbergasting to me that the Daily Office Lectionary passes over the verses that immediately precede this chapter.  

Image: From Jojojoe, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. The picture is a Greek Catholic icon depicting King Solomon with the plans of the Temple of Jerusalem that was built by him according to the Bible. The icon was painted in the end of the 18th century as part of the iconostasis of the Greek Catholic Cathedral of Hajdúdorog, Hungary. Solomon's icon is placed on the third tier of the iconostasis, the so-called Prophets tier. This icon is the fourth painting from the right. 

“God gave Solomon very great wisdom, discernment, and breadth of understanding as vast as the sand on the seashore, … He composed three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered a thousand and five. He would speak of trees, from the cedar that is in the Lebanon to the hyssop that grows in the wall; he would speak of animals, and birds, and reptiles, and fish. People came from all the nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon; they came from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom” (1 Kings 4:29–34).  

What is especially remarkable in Solomon’s reign is the way that worship of God and wonder at his world converge. By “wonder at his world” I mean both his explorations of human thought, desire, and behavior (witness, Solomon’s discerning the hearts of the two prostitutes in 1 Kings 3; his proverbs about life; his song about love) and his exploration of the beauty, complexity, and diversity of creation (from cedar to hyssop).  

The construction of the temple represents the height of this convergence, summed up in the words of King Hiram of Tyre to Solomon: “‘Blessed be the Lord today, who has given to David a wise son to be over this great people.’ … ‘I have heard the message that you have sent to me; I will fulfill all your needs in the matter of cedar and cypress timber’” (1 Kings 1:7,8). Then 1 Kings regales us with a myriad of created features that Solomon and his craftsmen incorporate into the temple: cedar, cypress, olivewood, dressed stone, gold—lots of gold!—carved cherubim and open flowers and palm trees (1 Kings 6).  

Solomon’s wedding of created beauty and the worship of God invites reflections on the horrible way that creation and worship have become divided in our world. 

According to John Barry’s The Great Influenza, when Johns Hopkins University was established in 1876 with a mission to put medicine on a scientific foundation, “American universities had nearly five hundred endowed chairs of theology and fewer than five in medicine” and “American theological schools enjoyed endowments of $18 million, while medical school endowments totaled $500,ooo.” I don’t have the time to check the numbers, writing on the fly as I am, but I strongly suspect the current ratios would be reversed.  

If Western society over-theologized life before the scientific revolution, we generally over-scientize it in a world in which serious religious belief is little more than a memory of days gone by. If the world before the discovery of bacteria (when medicine was thought to be a matter of balancing the human body’s humors) was over-enchanted, the world since then has become under-enchanted. The result is that there is a profoundly sad split between “science” and “faith.”  

Solomon’s witness stands against such a split between science and faith. We believe in the God who made “the heavens and the earth.” He calls us to tend and cultivate the earth (which begins with studying it and understanding it). We and all creation were marred by the Fall (Genesis 3). However, the Bible’s God is so committed to restore goodness and beauty to his beloved creation that he undertook, through Israel, and continues through his church, a project of redemption and restoration. We are called to embrace the goodness of God’s creation and to tell the story of God’s loving purposes to redeem it. Today’s readings include some wonderful reminders of the truthfulness of that story.  

“In the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the Lord” (1 Kings 6:1). Construction of the temple is made the more auspicious by dating its beginning from the exodus. The creative energy and the resources invested in this building further the Bible’s story of God overcoming the obstacles of sin and death and alienation. His goal is that he may dwell among us, and we with him.  

“See, my betrayer is at hand” (Mark 14:42). Mark’s reading today reminds us that the first betrayal that took place in the Garden of Eden leads to a second betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane, which leads to the reversal of all betrayals by the redemption of the Cross.  

“And so we came to Rome” (Acts 28:14). The last chapter of the book of Acts finds Paul in Rome, where he fulfills the promise Jesus made to his disciples in Jerusalem: the flow of Pentecost would take them to the ends of the earth. We never hear the end of Paul’s story in Acts. That’s because his story leads to ours, as we take the good news to the even further ends of the earth.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+