Advent Reminds Us that Light Broke In - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 11/30/2021
Tuesday of the First Week of Advent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 5; Psalm 6; Amos 3:1–11; 2 Peter 1:12–21; Matthew 21:12–22

For observations on 2 Peter 1:12–21 from 12/15/2020, see https://tinyurl.com/4rvk9yxh

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

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Collect for the First Sunday of Advent. Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Amos and Advent

Chronologically, Amos is the first of the great classical prophets (like Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah). A poor shepherd and horticulturalist from the southern kingdom of Judah, Amos is called by Yahweh to travel to the northern kingdom of Israel. It’s the middle of the 8th century B.C., and Israel is enjoying a long period of prosperity and expansion under Jeroboam II. Nobody sees the devastation that awaits, for Assyria to the east has not yet arisen as a threatening world power. However, Yahweh anticipates the seeds of Israel’s destruction in its violation of the covenant, and he sends Amos north to call Israel to repentance. 

Israel tolerates exploitation of the poor. Fortunes are made by the usurious pressing of poor farmers to the brink of bankruptcy, then the seizing of their land (Amos 2:6–7). Shockingly, for a people to whom the Law teaches stringent sexual boundaries (Genesis 2:23–24; Leviticus 18:7–30), predation is rampant: “Father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned” (Amos 2:7b). People defile worship by laying at their altars money they have stolen and extorted (Amos 2:8). 

Despite the luster of life under Jeroboam II, what lies beneath is corrupt. Israel’s very existence is predicated upon their being a vanguard—a promise in advance—of the restoration of human worth and dignity in union with God. Instead, Israelites are showing themselves to be as worthy of judgment as anybody else. God’s chosen people simply get added to the other nations Yahweh will judge: Damascus, Philistia, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab…and Judah and Israel (Amos 1:3–2:16). 

During the season of Advent, we examine our own lives for the same vestiges of corruption, asking God’s grace to “cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” 

Darkness will give way to light. Advent reminds us that the light broke in when God sent his Son in great humility. And Advent reminds us that the light will break in once again when the Son returns in glorious majesty. The sober, and indeed honoring, choice the Bible puts before us is whether to play a part ourselves in casting away those works of darkness, or (and this would be painful) waiting for the Lord do it all. 

You only have I known… (Amos 3:1). Yahweh will allow his love to be ignored only so long. Amos recalls the language of God’s covenant. “You only have I known” is not language of mere cognition. Yahweh is well acquainted with all the nations. But there is only one people with whom he has shared his heart, and that is the sense in which he says, “You only have I known.” As Adam “knew” Eve, and she bore a child (Genesis 4:1), so Yahweh has “known” Israel, and has looked for his life to be reproduced in her. With love, God has chosen this people from all the nations to be the place where he reinserts grace and justice and mercy into the human experience. And now, much like a parent who reluctantly allows a child to receive the consequences of disobedience, so Yahweh calls the nations to his service: “Proclaim to the strongholds in Ashdod, and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt, and say, “Assemble yourselves on Mount Samaria” (Amos 3:9a).

In advance of judgment, Amos calls God’s people to repent, to cast out the works of darkness, lest Yahweh do it for them. We know they choose badly. Advent reminds us that we can choose wisely. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

A Faith as Precious as Peter's - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 11/29/2021

Monday of the First Week of Advent, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 1; Psalm 2; Psalm 3; Amos 2:6–16; 2 Peter 1:1–11; Matthew 21:1–11

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

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2 Peter 1:3–7 is a masterfully constructed sentence in Greek, and it carries some of the most powerful truth in the entire New Testament. Who knew a Galilean fisherman could be so elegant? Then again, who wants to discount the power of Jesus to make us so much more than we are left to ourselves?!

Verses 3 and 5 are held together by an elegant, “Inasmuch as” (hōs — plus everything in verses 3–4), followed by a powerful “for this very reason” (kai auto touto de — plus everything in verses 5–7). 

“Inasmuch as…” With his “inasmuch as,” Peter looks back at the gift of “faith” he had introduced in 2 Peter 1:1. Peter says that we have been granted a faith that is just as precious as his own: “To those who have received a faith as precious as ours…” (2 Peter 1:1). Extraordinary! A faith equal in value to that of the Peter who had been given the keys to the Kingdom, had stood on the Mount of Transfiguration, had had his feet washed in the Upper Room, and had had his failures met with the simple question, “Do you love me?” 

Our faith is no less a gift than his was (“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven”—Matthew 16:17). Our faith gains us no less access to the presence of “our God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (2 Peter ), and is no less a resource for an abundance of “grace and peace” as we “grow in the rich knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ,” Peter’s Lord and ours. The gift of faith—a staggering and wonderful truth! 

And what a staggering thing it is we are asked and enabled to believe: that we “may become participants of the divine nature (theias koinōnoi phuseōs)” (2 Peter 1:4b). So enamored with this thought were ancient Christians from Irenaeus to Athanasias that they summed it up this way: “God became man, so man could become god.”*  What Peter and they mean is perhaps best expressed for modern western ears by C. S. Lewis (in a passage we have mentioned before), when he says, It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.** According to Peter, Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Lewis, believers are destined to be everlasting, godlike splendors. 

“for this very reason…” The thing is that process begins now. So great a gift as sharing the divine nature calls forth from us a cooperation with the divine hand that has taken hold of our life. And that hand is in the business of making us over in the now into what we will be when Christ returns for us, when our Advent hope is fully realized. 

To faith add virtue. To such faith, maintains the rugged former fisherman, we should strive with all our might to add “virtue.” This word, aretē, expressed for Greek-speaking people the highest aspiration in character-formation. It is a “being” word, not a “doing” word. It recognizes that what comes out of us has its source in our core identity and set of values—often pre-reflective values. Peter says to let our faith do the deep work within us of making us people of character. 

To virtue add knowledge. Amazing insights come to hearts that are true and right and inclined toward the good. It simply works that way. 

To knowledge add self-control. Knowledge of what’s real gives one the ability to accept both challenges (that is, to summon our resources to accomplish great things) and boundaries (that is, to reel ourselves in when we are tempted to go spinning out of control). 

To self-control add endurance. It takes mastery of oneself to enable “a long obedience in the same direction” (it is sufficient to commend pastor-theologian Eugene Peterson’s marvelous book by that title). 

To endurance add godliness. Long-haul Christians come to value the disciplines that comprise what Peter’s term “godliness” literally means: “good religion” (eu+sebeia). “Good religion” is (at least) daily prayer, corporate worship, the giving of alms, taking our place in the Body of Christ (see also the baptismal vows in the Book of Common Prayer, pp. 304–205). The world rightly hates hypocritical “religious” people, those who have “the outward form of good religion but deny its power” (2 Timothy 3:5). What the world needs to see, and what the world will find persuasive, is people whose faith and hope and love have been sustained and strengthened by the disciplines of “good religion,” by godliness. 

To godliness add brotherly affection. The God who is a community of love (Father, Son, and Spirit) makes us irrepressibly fond of those who have been drawn into his human community of love. If we love the Triune God, we love those who belong to that fellowship—we are attracted to those in whom that life glows. We find that it goes with the grain of who we are as beloved of God to honor the first of our baptismal vows: to “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers.” 

To brotherly affection add self-giving love.  And that brotherly affection (to the extent that it is indeed Christ’s brotherly affection and not mere carnal mutual self-adoration) creates in us a love for those not yet in Christ’s fold. Our love for the Christian family propels us to love the entire human family. We find ourselves going with the grain of God’s reality by living into the last two baptismal vows: to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself” … and “to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.” 

Praise be for the splendor that came in Jesus Christ, that will be revealed at his glorious return, and that works its way into our lives in the now. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

*Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 5, Preface; Athanasius, On the Incarnation 54.3; Against the Arians 1.39; 3.34; see also, for example, Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 1. 

**From C.S. Lewis’s “Weight of Glory” sermon. 

Image: Guercino , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

United with Christ - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 11/26/2021
Friday of the Twenty-sixth Week After Pentecost (Proper 29)

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 140; Psalm 142; Isaiah 24:14–23; 1 Peter 3:13–4:6; Matthew 20:17–28

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

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Our baptism

And baptism…now saves you…through the resurrection of Jesus Christ… — 1 Peter 3:21. Peter regales in the comprehensiveness of Christ’s work, and he sees Christ’s work being crystallized and brought into our lives at baptism. 

As believers in Christ, we live with liminality, that is, we live in the “betweenness” of darkness and light, of an old world that is fading and a new world that has only partially begun in Christ. We live simultaneously with the joy of knowing that we are “select” of God for salvation and sanctification, and with the challenge of being “strangers” in a world that requires of us submission and suffering (see the DDD for this past Monday). 

In our baptism, God provides a profound marker of our identity as “select strangers.” Peter explores that wonderful truth in today’s passage.

Comparing our situation to Noah’s, Peter sweeps us up into God’s great meta-narrative of his reclamation of the world. Our baptism plunges us symbolically into a death-by-drowning that we, along with the rest of the world, fully deserve, but from which we have been gloriously and graciously rescued. The symbolism is dense. 

United with Christ. Noah’s family floated above the drowning waters because the one righteous man (Genesis 6:9) brought them into the boat he had constructed. Similarly, Christ has gathered into the boat he is building (the church) those who by faith have become his own family members. United to him in his boat, we “are saved” amid the impending judgment that presently swirls around us and that will one day be executed with a worldwide conflagration (this time of fire rather than water—see 2 Peter 3:6–7,10). 

Dying and rising with Christ. Union with the living and righteous builder of the boat is one aspect of baptism’s symbolism. Another aspect of its symbolism is the way it pictures the death Christ has died in our place and the resurrection he has thereby won for us. 

Literal and Symbolic. Literally, Christ died. In fact, he even referred to his death ahead of time as “the baptism with which I am to be baptized” (Luke 12:50; Mark 10: 38). He died, Peter says, suffering for our sins, “the just for the unjust, in order to bring [us] to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Symbolically, we likewise die in baptism. We die when we are plunged into the waters of baptism, or have those waters poured over or sprinkled onto our heads. 

Literally, Christ rose, having accomplished all that was necessary for our consciences to be cleansed (1 Peter 3:21), for us to be released from the prison of death (1 Peter 3:19), and for us to be presented to God in the heavenly courts (1 Peter 1:7,9). Symbolically we rise when we come up out of the waters of baptism or emerge from the pouring or sprinkling of baptismal waters. 

Literally, Christ ascended to the right hand of the Father, receiving there the Holy Spirit as the Father’s gift to pour out upon the church. Symbolically, we are marked on our foreheads with oil that we may live in the power and the joy of the gift of that same Holy Spirit. 

Christ descends into death in ignobility, and with all the shame and cursedness of our sinfulness. He rises into resurrection life in glory, and takes his rightful place “at the right hand of God with angels and authorities and powers subject to him” (1 Peter 3:22). Our baptism unites us with Christ in such a way that our enduring of the (normally) little deaths of being counted strangers, submitters, and sufferers—it all becomes a matter of “sharing Christ’s sufferings” (1 Peter 4:13; and note the striking parallel of Paul’s language of “the sharing of his sufferings” at Philippians 3:10). And our baptism unites us with Christ in such a way that his resurrection becomes our life in the Spirit now, and a promise that one day our bodies will be raised from the dead like his was. 

For all these reasons (and more, though a brief devotional does not allow for a full discussion) our baptism becomes the place where heaven and earth touch. In baptism, Christ sweeps us up into this resurrected life, for “baptism…now saves you.” 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Image: https://www.piqsels.com/en/public-domain-photo-svbzy

Live as Free People - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 11/25/2021
Thursday of the Twenty-sixth Week After Pentecost (Proper 29)

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 131; Psalm 132; Psalm 133; Zephaniah 3:1–13; 1 Peter 2:11–25; Matthew 20:1–16

On 1 Peter 2:11–25, see also https://tinyurl.com/2htusat8, from 4/23/2020

On Matthew 20:1–16, see also https://tinyurl.com/2dmdzrzh, from 6/24/2020

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

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 Beloved, I urge you as foreigners and exiles…

When Peter tells us in 1 Peter 2:11 that we are “foreigners” and “exiles” he means that we live by a completely different value system than the people around us. The two words in Greek (paroikoi and parepidēmoi) denote people who live “alongside” households and city populations, but do not fully belong to them. And for our outsider status, there will be a price to pay. 

It’s not easy to translate across the 2 millennia and the cultural differences that separate Peter’s world from ours. But there are some hints as to the challenges we share with our 1st century Christian counterparts in their Roman world.

“Conduct yourselves honorably … though they malign you…” (1 Peter 2:12). There is a culture that stands outside us and makes us feel we are from another planet. We can capitulate and join the crowd. We can overreact and become jerks. Or we can strive to live wisely “in the world, but not of the world,” as some believers have summarized. The 2nd century Epistle to Diognetus elegantly sums our situation, calling us “this new race or way of life” (kainon touto genos ē epitēdeuma), neither Greek nor Jew (Epistle to Diognetus 1.1). Christians, as the Epistle explains very much in the spirit of 1 Peter, “live in their own countries, but only as nonresidents (paroikoi); they participate in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign country is their fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign” (Epistle 5.5). 

“…abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11). There are internal desires that wage war with our souls. Those desires would be tough enough to strive against if we were alone and living in a desert. The war becomes more desperate when we live in a world that glorifies materialism and appetite, and shouts “You can have it all!” 

“…live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil” (1 Peter 2:16). We can strive for “freedom,” and abuse that freedom to cover evil. The world around us thinks of “freedom” as giving us the right to unbounded self-expression. There may be no greater challenge for believers in our world (and I am thinking primarily of believers in first-world democracies) than living with the benefits of political, economic, and social liberty. “Nobody can tell me what to do!” is a slogan of our time. There’s nothing more anti-Christian, nothing more contrary to the life Peter is exhorting. The freedom we have in Christ, is a freedom to serve. 

“…accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor… or of governors…accept the authority of your masters with all deference…” (1 Peter 2:13). Lying politicians, abusive authority figures, and horrible bosses give us every reason to respond, “But, but…!” to Peter’s exhortation. And we (most of us who read these devotionals) live in a world, unlike Peter’s, in which we have a voice in who governs us and how they do so, and we are free to seek out better bosses. What Peter puts before us is the need to resist deep cynicism toward all authority, the obligation to reject an inclination to non-compliance whenever our convenience is infringed, and the imperative to say “No!” to a spirit of defiance that poisons every asymmetrical relationship. Like it or not, we all find ourselves in the “lesser” position of some asymmetrical relationships. Our job is to find Christ in those places. 

“…Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you should follow in his footsteps” (1 Peter 2:21). To this very end, Peter, alone among New Testament writers, finds in Isaiah 53’s Song of the Suffering Servant a model for the Christian life. We bear witness to Christ’s way of life by living that same life. For Peter, we win the doubters by following Christ into “the valley of the shadow.” When doubters see our willingness to accept mistreatment, they may at last ask about “the hope that is within us” (1 Peter 3:15).  

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24). That’s when we have the chance to share the glorious good news about Christ’s atoning, forgiving, justifying, reconciling death for us, and his vivifying, sanctifying, transforming, righteousness-teaching presence among us by virtue of his resurrection and ascension. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Babyaimeesmom, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

No Discards - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 11/24/2021
Wednesday of the Twenty-sixth Week After Pentecost (Proper 29)

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:145–176; Obadiah 15–21; 1 Peter 2:1–10; Matthew 19:23–30

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

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No “discards” 

Bob died not long ago. He was 92 years old, and he had been retired for many years from a long and productive calling as a pastor. Even though he led Bible studies up to the very end of his life, in his last few years he often wondered aloud to his daughter Donna if there was any more purpose to his life. Or whether he was a “discard.” She kept reminding him that he was precious to God, to her, and to the many people whom he had served and continued to serve in ministry. 

A couple of weeks before his death, Bob got a new roommate, Manny. Manny noticed that Bob read the Bible a lot, and he asked Bob about it. Bob shared his faith in Christ, and, to Bob’s surprise, Manny asked if he could pray to receive Christ. Two days later, Manny died.

Donna told Bob, “See, Dad, God has no discards. You were here for Manny, and now Manny will be part of the reception party for you when the time comes.” The time for that reception party came a mere two weeks later. Donna, of course, shed (and still does) many tears. But there’s no small joy mixed with the tears, knowing her dad knew his gracious God had given him that one last mission. 

The anchor of Bob’s soul was Jesus Christ, who himself knew what it was to be a “discard.” As Peter says, echoing Isaiah, Jesus was “rejected by men but chosen and precious in God’s sight” (1 Peter 2:4 NET; see Isaiah 28:6). Any of us who feel like life has passed us by, or that people have turned their back on us, can look to Jesus. That’s the way they treated him, and if we belong to him, we can count our dismissal as a sharing in his suffering of rejection. Whether it’s an employer who has said, “We are going in a different direction,” a spouse who says, “I don’t love you anymore,” a child who says, “I hate you and want you out of my life,” or a friend who says, “Because your politics are so distasteful to me, we can’t be friends any longer.” 

Jesus knew rejection. He also knew that to his Father in heaven, he was specially chosen, deeply known and deeply loved, in fact, before the foundation of the world. He knew that he was precious—the Greek at 1 Peter 2:4 is entimos, which means “highly valued.” He also knew that as “a living stone,” he was the anchoring stone (scholars puzzle over whether the term he uses makes him the foundation stone or the capstone) of an amazing new house his Father was building—a house in which God and we would reside together. Regardless of how others treated him, Jesus knew his mission was to anchor a building made up of other “living stones”—you and me, and Bob and Donna and Manny. 

Peter writes to people who are now outsiders to Roman life. Many of these, because of their new life in Christ, became castoffs in their homes, associated no longer in shady business deals, and no longer patronized brothels with their friends. Peter wants them to know they are treasured by their Heavenly Father, ransomed by their Brother and Friend, and essential to the house of which they themselves are a part.  

Peter augments the picture of their being “living stones” in God’s new building. He draws upon several vivid Old Testament images of the way God values and dignifies his people.

A holy and royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:5,9). While the world does not even know why it aches and feels cursed, Christ’s people stand between them and the God who loves them and they cry out, “How long, O Lord, until you end the aches and remove the curse?” 

A chosen race (1 Peter 2:9). While the world descends further and further into an ugly and destructive tribalism, Christ’s people resolutely invite anybody and everybody to become a part of a new peoplehood being built around the Second Adam, the Last Man (1 Corinthians 15:45,47).

A holy nation (1 Peter 2:9). In a field of competing loyalties, Christ’s people point to one leader, one king, one commonwealth that is worthy of ultimate loyalty: the Kingdom of God in Christ. 

A people for his possession (1 Peter 2:9). While the world grasps after and competes for more and more possessions (all the while becoming more and more possessed by those possessions) Christ’s people rejoice in the stunning wonder of counting themselves held, protected, and cherished by the God who has claimed them as his prized possession. 

No longer “Not a people” nor “Those who have not received mercy,” but now transformed into “God’s people” and “those who have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10). In a world of people who secretly fear the worst about themselves—that they are and fully deserve to be “discards”—Christ’s people unrelentingly proclaim the excellencies of the God who claims precisely such people, forgives them, heals them, and beautifies them. 

I’m grateful Bob knew the full measure of these precious truths. I pray you and I know them too. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: "ribbon, clasped hands, anchor, heart and cross" by Leo Reynolds is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Hard Thinking - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 11/23/2021
Tuesday of the Twenty-sixth Week After Pentecost (Proper 29)

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 121; Psalm 122; Psalm 123; Nahum 1:1–13; 1 Peter 1:13–25; Matthew 19:13–22

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

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Today’s brilliant paragraph in 1 Peter leads with an intriguing metaphor: “[G]ird up the loins of your mind” (1 Peter 1:13a). As the editors of the New English Translation note, Peter employs “a figure of speech drawn from the Middle Eastern practice of gathering up long robes around the waist and tucking them under the belt to prepare for work of action.” 

I’m reminded of the way my samurai sword class prepares to clean the floors of our dojo at the end of class. We gather the divided skirts of our hakama and tuck them in our belt, so we move about on our knees and hands as we push moistened towels over the floorboards. “Girding your loins” means you are preparing to get to work. When its “the loins of our mind” that we are told to “gird,” that can only mean we are supposed to ready ourselves for some hard thinking.

There are too many thought-nuggets in this paragraph to track down in a short devotional. But here are a few. 

 “[S]et all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed” (1 Peter 1:13b). Put hope in the grace that will come when Jesus comes again. It takes a lot of mental energy to sort out the things we can fix or attain in the present from the things that will have to wait for the Lord to fix or bring to us. Tooth decay I can address; my body’s eventual decay I can’t. Proximate justice we can hope for and work towards in society; perfect justice will have to wait. Here’s the Christian hope: all that is wrong now will one day yield to God’s kindness, his benevolence, his unmerited favor. That’s worth thinking hard about. 

“[D]o not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance” (1 Peter 1:14b). Reflecting on the strong desires that used to govern my life, I’m deluding myself if I think I haven’t been dragged around by them. For Peter, that is pretty much how our former lives were conducted. Ashley Null summarizes the guiding theological insight of Archbishop Cranmer, architect of the Book of Common Prayer (I approximate Null’s formulation), “What the heart desires, the will seizes, and the mind rationalizes.” We are desiring creatures before we are thinking agents. We all have things that are all too powerfully alluring to us. For example, potato chips, chocolate, and ice cream can defeat me. The only way I know how to eliminate those temptations when I come across them in the kitchen is to consume them! Peter challenges us to intervene with our brains. We do so by exposing as best we can the secret urges that would otherwise govern us all our days. That’s worth thinking hard about. 

“You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors” (1 Peter 2:18). In a similar vein, Peter invites us to reflect on the ways that our upbringing has shaped our sense of right and wrong, truth and falsity. Was our background one of privilege, or not? Were we taught that we were loved and valued, or that we were in the way and that other things matter more? Did we grow up with few friends or many, as an only child or one of many? Did we grow up relating to and valuing all sorts of people, or were we taught to divide the world into “us” versus “them”? Those are things worth thinking hard about.  

“‘All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25but the word of the Lord endures forever.’ That word is the good news that was announced to you” (1 Peter 1:24). My mind needs constantly to be reshaped by the truths that are in the Bible. There’s no way around that fact. My friend, the ever-vigilant Paul Kennedy recently discovered this introduction in his hotel room’s Gideon Bible: “Owned, it is riches; studied, it is wisdom; trusted, it is salvation; loved, it is character; and obeyed, it is power.” That’s worth thinking hard about. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Chosen and Destined - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 11/22/2021

Monday of the Twenty-sixth Week After Pentecost (Proper 29)

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 106; Joel 3:1–2,9–17; 1 Peter 1:1–12; Matthew 19:1–12

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)

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A friend recently said to me, “I’m living in a state of liminality right now.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. 

“Well, I guess I mean I feel stuck between two worlds. It’s as though at work and at home, some old things needed to die. But it’s still not clear where life is on the other side. I feel caught in pre-dawn, and I long for daylight. It’s like I’m playing a piece on the piano, and I can’t move past the next to last chord. It’s a 7th chord that keeps going and going. It won’t resolve to that splendid, final 1-chord. I don’t feel like I really belong to my old world, even though I still live in it. But I’m not sure what the new world I seem to be moving into looks like either. I’m caught in this weird transitional place, at home in neither the old nor the new.”

It so happens that my friend’s plight is every Christian’s plight. We live in a place of transition from death to life, from darkness to light, from turbulence to peace. We live in the liminal, at home neither in the old world any longer nor in the new quite yet. 

Over the course of this week and the next, we will read through the two letters of Peter. Nobody describes the liminal state of the Christian life better than this especially attentive disciple of Jesus. 

1 Peter: chosen and destined, but also resident aliens. I once heard a preacher explain this letter as a dance between two terms Peter puts together in the very first verse. We are “select strangers” (eklektoi parepidēmoi). We have been “selected” by a sovereign God for “salvation” and “sanctification.” Meanwhile, we are “strangers” to this world, and are called to “submission” and “suffering.”

That’s the Christian life as Peter unpacks it. That’s the liminality of our existence—yours, mine, and my friend’s. 

What it is to be “select” Peter works out in terms of a “salvation” that God has accomplished for us (1 Peter 1:3–13) and a “sanctification” that God is working in us (1 Peter 1:14–2:10)

What it is to be “strangers” Peter works out in terms of Christlike “submission” in various relationships (1 Peter 2:11–3:8; 5:1–10) and of Christlike “suffering” in a hostile world (1 Peter 3:9–4:19). 

We don’t entirely belong here, because we are on our way to our homeland. Nonetheless, Peter will instruct us as we move through this first epistle of his that we are called to be good citizens of countries that don’t fully claim us, and faithful family members, even of families that don’t fully “get” us. 

In his opening chapter of this gem of a letter, Peter offers hints as to what gets us through. 

“…even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials…” (1 Peter 1:6). We know that suffering is real, but that it won’t last.  

“…so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:7–8). We know that the testing of our faith through trials only strengthens our faith. 

“In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials … you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy…” (1 Peter 1:6,8b). We know that there is a joy which only faith-under-suffering can produce.   

“Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours made careful search and inquiry, 11 inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory” (1 Peter 1:10–11). We know that we are part of a story that has been unfolding for millennia. It’s the drama of redemption that the Bible narrates from cover to cover. And at its core, it is a glorious tale that draws us into the pageantry of, and into our share in, the sufferings and glory of God’s Messiah, the Savior and Redeemer of the world. Our small bit parts take on gigantic import as they contribute to the glorious tale they help to tell: a tale of the transformation of suffering into triumph, of shame into glory, and of ugliness into beauty.  

Back to my friend. The Christian life, as sketched by Peter, is a lot like a long pre-dawn or an extended 7th chord. What Peter would have us understand is that pre-dawn has its own beautiful, subtle, and promissory hues of light. And a penultimate 7th chord carries exquisite tones of poignant memory and eager expectation. The Christian life is learning to live well in the period between darkness and light, old and new. I pray we find in Peter’s wise words what the hymn writer calls “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.” Great, indeed, is his faithfulness. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: "musical fingers" by vl8189 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Christ in Our Midst Now - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 11/19/2021
Friday of the Twenty-fifth Week After Pentecost (Proper 28)

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 102; 1 Maccabees 4:36–59; Revelation 22:6–13; Matthew 18:10-20

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

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Wrapping up 1 Maccabees and Revelation:

Jewish people celebrated Hanukkah for the first time in 164 B.C. and continue to celebrate it to this day. Christians take this to be a celebration in advance of the things John recounts for us in the Book of Revelation. At creation, God had intended the whole earth to be a temple for his dwelling among humans. Enter the serpent with his hiss. Enter the pollution of sin and the darkness of evil. A day is coming when this earth will be delivered from dissolution and decay, and God will dwell among his glorified sons and daughters as he originally intended. 

From the day he first showed up in his Father’s house with whip in hand (John 2), Jesus has been working to purify, indeed, to redesign, reconstruct, and redecorate the place for the meeting place between God and us. On the cross, Jesus took all the pollution and ugliness and defilement of God’s temple and his creation. Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ temple desecration was but a small part. The truth is, all of us are complicit in the degradation of creation. Jesus took all of it into himself, buried it in his own tomb, and left it there when he rose from the dead. He rose in promise that the day will come when God’s house will be put entirely into order.

The establishment under Judas Maccabeus of Hanukkah, “the Festival of Lights,” as an annual celebration of the rededication of Ezra-Nehemiah’s temple is a happy reminder to us that it is important to set aside seasons of praise to celebrate the moments we become aware of God’s redemptive interventions in our lives—when he raises us up from a sickbed, when he blesses us with a new child or job or relationship, when he grants us a new realization of his grace and forgiveness. More deeply, though, it is a happy reminder of his commitment, in his own time, to make all things new. He’s promised, and he will come through. 

Meanwhile, in verses that the daily lectionary mystifyingly leaves out, John gives us the Bible’s final imperatives, the Bible’s final exhortations and invitations: 

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift” (Revelation 22:17). 

Fittingly, as I once heard theologian Leonard Sweet observe, the Bible begins by telling us to “eat” (Genesis 2:16) and it ends by telling us to “drink” (Revelation 22::17b). The Bible is a book of life, because it is God who gives life and health and well-being. 

Matthew: the presence of Christ in our midst in the now. Christ came to be an “advance” on God’s dwelling on the earth with his people in the hereafter. He is, as Matthew has already told us, “Immanuel,” “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). It is incumbent upon us, therefore, to conduct ourselves with a circumspection and care corresponding to that reality. 

First, we don’t just let each other drift away: “If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray…” (Matthew 18:12–14). In my first job out of seminary, I was put in charge of that congregation’s “straying sheep.” Lunch appointment after lunch appointment provided sobering lessons in the disappointment of congregants who felt their church promised more than it delivered. I learned that listening to concerns and apologizing when necessary resulted in a grace of reconciliation. 

Second, we are called to keep a vigilant eye to predation in the congregation: “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault …” (Matthew 18:15–19). Grace can be mistaken for permissiveness. “The Lord’s sheep can be mistreated; old ones, widows, and young ones can be taken advantage of. In the name of Christ, the church works hard to protect the innocent. 

Third, may we never outgrow our wonder at the fact that the one whom we will one day see seated as “the Alpha and the Omega” (Revelation 22:12) is already among us whenever we gather: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20). He is present among us in “the little ones;” among us in the Prayers and Praises; among us in the Proclamation of the Word; among us at the Passing of the Peace; among us in the Bread and the Wine—and then among us as we “go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19–20). 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

God's New City - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 11/18/2021
Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week After Pentecost (Proper 28)

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105; 1 Maccabees 4:1–25; Revelation 21:22–22:5; Matthew 18:1–9

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

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 1 Maccabees: continuing God’s victory. Today is the next to last day of our brief introduction to the intertestamental book of 1 Maccabees. Fittingly, the Daily Office commends the reading/singing of “The Song of Moses” following the reading of today’s passage, 1 Maccabees 4:1–25. In this reading, Judas Maccabeus couches his hard-won triumph in terms that recall the victory of the people of God under Moses over Pharaoh and his army: “Remember how our ancestors were saved at the Red Sea, when Pharaoh with his forces pursued them” (1 Maccabees 4:9). Judas Maccabeus sees the Israel of his day carrying forward the great story of God delivering his people, and so he leads them in the psalmist’s refrain, “For he is good. for his mercy endures forever” (1 Maccabees 4:24; see Psalm 136, throughout).

Revelation: God’s new city. Today also happens to be the next to last day of our survey of Revelation, a peek into the final chapter of God’s grand story of reclamation, redemption, and renewal. Symbolic details flesh out what it is for God finally to dwell among us: God himself (the incarnate God-Man) is the temple. Thus, the new city that has come down from heaven has no temple in it. God’s very presence provides all the light anybody needs, so there’s no need of sun or moon. With all enemies vanquished, city gates will never need to be closed. Access to “the tree of life” that had been denied at the Fall in the Garden of Eden is opened in this new Edenic city. A “river of the water of life,” flows through it, nourishing trees that bear leaves “for the healing of the nations.” Where curse had ruled for millennia, now there’s life and health and peace. 

Personal benefits that John lists, well, honestly, they outstrip my capacity to imagine them. What does it mean to “see the face” of the invisible God, unless, perhaps John means we see his image bearer, Jesus Christ, God-incarnate (Revelation 22:4)? God’s name on our foreheads (Revelation 7:3; 14:1; by way of contrast, see 13:16;17:5) means we will have been forever claimed as God’s cherished possession. And the notion that we will “reign forever and ever” can only mean that life in the new Jerusalem will not be static; in a vast universe emerging from the cloud of dissolution and decay, we will have dominions to explore and tasks that renew the mandate to our original parents to “subdue … and have dominion” (Genesis 1:28).  

Matthew: readiness for life in the city of God. In Matthew 18, Jesus elegantly lays out the path to preparedness for life in the new Jerusalem. To “see God” in the new Jerusalem when it comes, we must see the face of Christ in the little children now. “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me” (Matthew 18:5). 

To prepare ourselves to bear the name that declares his permanent proprietorship on our brow, we monitor our lives in the now, looking to purge our hearts of desires that would take us where errant eyes or feet or hands would otherwise take us: “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble…” (Matthew 18:8–10). We exercise equally diligent care in preparing ourselves to live in a place where “nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood” (Revelation 21:27). Readying ourselves, in other words from Revelation 21, to “bring into it the glory and honor of the nations”—specifically, offering ourselves as living sacrifices. 

It follows, then, that to ready ourselves for whatever dominion is ours in the hereafter, we must learn to rule ourselves in the here and now. We learn that the school of greatness is the school of lowliness: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3–4). 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Hannah Cohoon - made in 1845, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From Shadow to Reality - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 11/17/2021
Wednesday of the Twenty-fifth Week After Pentecost (Proper 28)

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 101; Psalm 109; 1 Maccabees 3:42–60; Revelation 21:9–21; Matthew 17:22–27

Further thoughts on Revelation 21:9–21 from 11/23/2020 at https://tinyurl.com/e4xt5xzy

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

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The juxtaposition of 1 Maccabees and Revelation. In 1 Maccabees, Judas Maccabeus piously and passionately prepares to preserve and purify Jerusalem and its sanctuary. Throughout the waxing and waning of Israel’s fortunes, its people see themselves as stewards of a sacred treasure. In Revelation, John is shown, by contrast, a heavenly Jerusalem, “the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21:10b). From the perspective of the early leaders of the Christian church, the earthly Jerusalem and the physical temple (built by Solomon, rebuilt by Ezra-Nehemiah, reclaimed by Judas Maccabeus, and expanded by Herod the Great) are “shadows” that must eventually give way to “reality.” That reality is the heavenly Jerusalem, “the bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Revelation 21:10a).

The perspective that God would have John communicate to us is that through all the tribulation, the strife, and the turmoil in the church’s experience here “below,” there is being prepared for her a glorious ending. Indeed, as blemished as the church itself can be, God is working to beautify her and prepare her for her wedding day. We will eventually hear the Lord commending her for her “righteous deeds” (Revelation 19:8). As confused and as error-prone as the church’s own stewards seem to be, the Lord is building her according to his own design, out of valuable materials, with perfect symmetry, and at an unimaginably huge scale. That is the encouragement John receives in the vision of a city with gates named after the twelve tribes of Israel, and foundations named after the twelve apostles (Revelation 21:12–14). All are built with fantastic proportions and measurements (Revelation 21:15–17), and constructed using precious stones for building materials (Revelation 21:18–21).  

Matthew: Jesus and the temple tax. In his relationship with his lead disciple Simon Peter, Jesus shows how the Good Shepherd (John 10) cares for a shepherd-in-training. 

What whiplash Simon Peter has been experiencing in our last couple of days of readings in Matthew! He is given the “keys to the Kingdom” for recognizing Jesus as Messiah; then he’s rebuked as a “Satan” for questioning Messiah’s plan to carry out his mission via death and resurrection. In the Transfiguration of the Lord Jesus, Peter is treated to a vision of the future of humankind’s glorification.  His bumbling attempt to memorialize the experience gets unceremoniously shut down by a bright cloud of theophany (God’s presence). 

Along with the other disciples, Peter is chided for not having enough faith to perform miracles. The next thing he and the disciples know, Jesus is talking again about the death and resurrection of the Son of Man.. Understandably, “they became greatly distressed” (Matthew 1723b). 

With all this to sort out in his heart and his head, Peter gets accosted by the local “revenue service”: “Your teacher does pay the temple tax, doesn’t he?” (Matthew 17:24 my translation). In the law of Moses (Exodus 30:11–16), every male twenty years old and up was required to pay the tax “for the service of the tent of meeting; before the Lord it will be a reminder to the Israelites of the ransom given for your lives” (Exodus 30:16). Peter answers, “Yes.” 

Rather than take us into the swirl of thoughts in Peter’s head, Matthew notes instead that before Peter can say a word in reporting the encounter, Jesus takes him aside for a private moment. Jesus reminds Peter of two simple truths: 

Jesus still is Messiah. “From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?” 26 When Peter said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the children are free” (Matthew 17:25b–26). Despite all the hard news about his upcoming sufferings, Jesus affirms that he is “greater than the temple” (Matthew 12:6). Peter’s faith in him as Son of God and Messiah is not in vain. Jesus assures Peter that he (Jesus) is, indeed, Son of God and, as the writer to the Hebrews is later to write, Lord over the house (Hebrews 3:6). 

Meanwhile, things that are temporary and provisional are still worth taking care of. Though the Jerusalem temple is but a “shadow” destined to give way to “reality” when Jesus establishes a new temple made of “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5), he and Peter can give due honor to the earthly temple while it is still standing. “However, so that we do not give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook; take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a coin; take that and give it to them for you and me” (Matthew 17:27). Sometimes, because we know “the rest of the story,” we can make concessions to provisional, temporary, and even seemingly trivial constraints. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

All Things New - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 11/16/2021
Tuesday of the Twenty-fifth Week After Pentecost (Proper 28)

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; 1 Maccabees 3:25–41; Revelation 21:1–8; Matthew 17:14–21 

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

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To me, one of the most memorable moments of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ occurs when Jesus stumbles while carrying his cross to Calvary. Gibson imagines Jesus’s mother coming to help him up, as he utters these words from Revelation 21:7: “I make all things new.” Not exact history, but perfect theology. 

Each of today’s passages brings its own reminder that things are horribly wrong in our world and in our lives. Our best attempts to address them are partial, ambiguous, and temporary at best. 

There’s a need for a massive “reset.” 

1 Maccabees. After Mattathias’s death, his son Judas emerges as the leader of the Jewish rebellion against Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Hellenist imperialists. For his military prowess and for his success in freeing Jerusalem from pagan control, Judas earns the nickname “Maccabeus,” which means “Hammer.” In early campaigns, he defeats Antiochus’s generals. Israel has a hero. Antiochus despairs of making Israel over into a showcase of Hellenistic enlightenment. He orders the annihilation of the Jewish population. We know that Antiochus will fail, that Judas Maccabeus will win, and that he and his fellow Israelites will rededicate their temple. 

But we also know the story continues: the Herodian dynasty will, in its own opulent way, fatally pollute the temple and the Romans will finally level it. Into our own time Jewish people endure pogroms and “final solutions.” Around the world and across time, other people groups too undergo oppression and campaigns of ethnic cleansing: from the 2nd century BC’s Carthagians to today’s Uyghurs and Tigrayans. It will not end until Christ is seated, as Revelation 21 depicts him, and declares “I make all things new.” Even so, we believe it is the cross that secures that final renewal. 

Matthew. Jesus comes to take our diseases to the cross: “He took our weaknesses and carried our diseases” (Matthew 8:17, quoting Isaiah 53:4). Further, he gives his immediate circle of disciples healing powers like his—if only they will believe. Over the long haul of the church’s life, evidence of direct healing powers like those is muted. Since then, the “mustard seed” faith Jesus planted among his disciples has produced a sequoia-size tree of faith in the power of Christ to inspire compassion for the sick and to develop all sorts of healing ministries. Christians take medicine into the most disease-ridden places on the planet. They spawn networks of hospitals given, as the motto of one such network puts it, to “being the healing hands of Jesus.” Christians who have found a measure of Christ’s emotional and relational healing in the ministration of competent counselors and therapists seek out training so they can be “as Christ” to others. In the now, Christ “makes all things new” in ways that mostly are indirect, incomplete, and anticipatory of final healing. 

Revelation 21 promises that one day that complete “reset” will take place. All things will be made finally and completely new:

God himself will be with them;
4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away (Revelation 21:3d–4).

Meanwhile, we wait, we work, and we pray this Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and ordination prayer: 

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen (BCP, pp. 280, 291, 515, 528, 540)

And, perhaps, with Big Daddy Weave, we sing, “All Things New” 

From the ashes, from the dust,
I will rise up, rise up.
Out of darkness into the light
I will rise up, rise up.

You make all things new,
You make all things new.
God of mercy and love,
Do what only You can do, 
And make all things…
All things… 
You make all things new.

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

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