Expect a Happy Ending - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 10/16/2023 •
Monday of the Twentieth Week After Pentecost (Proper 23)  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 1; Psalm 2; Psalm 3; Jeremiah 36:11–26; 1 Corinthians 13:1–13; Matthew 10:5–15 

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 23 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Into the Corinthians’ confusion over the terms of their new life in Christ — they think Christ has come to baptize their social snobbery, bless their spiritual vanity, and endorse their assertion of their “rights” — into their confusion, Paul drops a clarity-bomb. Life in Christ’s kingdom, life in this new world, is about one thing: love. In one of the most splendid passages he is ever to compose, Paul crisply describes the contours of the life that has taken hold of them in Christ.  

“Love is patient.” Love doesn’t stand there tapping its toe with arms crossed, and saying, “Come on already!” Paul’s Μακροθυμεῖ (makrothumei) is close to Exodus 34:6’s self-description of Yahweh: “slow to anger” (LXX, μακρόθυμος, makrothumos). Meaning: love isn’t quick on the trigger. Love’s on-ramp to anger is lllllloooonnnngggg.  

“Love is kind.” χρηστεύεται (chresteuetai). To the Greek ear, this particular use of the root word “kind” (χρηστ-, chrest-) would have sounded like the making of a verb out of the title, “Christ.” Christ’s people act in ways that remind people of the One who brought kindness from heaven to earth.  

“Love is not envious.” Love isn’t resentful at somebody else’s happiness. Love doesn’t begrudge someone else’s success. Love doesn’t get upset when somebody else does well.  

“Love is … not boastful.” Love isn’t in the self-promotion business. The word here is one of Paul’s strongest: it’s περπερεύεται (perpereuetai). It occurs only here in the Bible, but is fairly frequent in contemporary literature: “to heap praise upon oneself; to be a braggart or a windbag.” You bet Paul knew a bunch of those folks in First Church “We Have Become Kings” in Corinth! 

“Love is … not arrogant.” Love isn’t “puffed up” (literally), that is, it doesn’t have a bloated ego or inflated view of itself, especially at the expense of someone else. Love isn’t contemptuous, or disdainful of others.     

“Love is … not rude.” This word might better be rendered “crude” or “indecent.” The Greek is οὐκ ἀσχημονεῖ (ouk aschemonei), and it means “behave disgracefully, dishonorably, indecently.” Love does not treat anyone in a demeaning, disgraceful, dishonorable, or indecent way. An apt word in a world of #MeToo and #ChurchToo.  

“Love … does not insist on its own way.” Love’s default is: “Happy to do it your way.” 

“Love is … not irritable.” We get “paroxysm” from this Greek word. Violent convulsions of rage don’t leave much room for love.  

“Love is … not resentful.” The Greek here (οὐ λογίζεται τὸ κακόν, ou logizetai to kakon) means: “Love doesn’t keep score, counting up offenses, readying a payback.”  

“Love … does not rejoice in wrongdoing.” Put in the positive, love grieves when it sees injustice, and does not sit idly by when wrongdoing is on the rise.  

“Love … rejoices in the truth.” Love says, “Yes!” to the real. Love knows that philosopher-theologians Thomas Aquinas and Josef Pieper are right: as the Father begets the Son and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, “Being” leads to “Truth” leads to “Justice.” Which is why love delights in the progression of the Eucharistic prayer: “… out of error into truth, (then) out of sin into righteousness, (then) out of death into life.”  

“Love … bears all things.” The relevant meaning for the verb στέγειν (stegein) is “keep confidential, cover, pass over in silence.” Theologian-historian Adolf Harnack is hard to beat here: Love “throws a cloak of silence over what is displeasing in another person.” 

“Love believes all things.” Love is ready to extend (wise) trust. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “We have learnt never to trust a scoundrel an inch, but to give ourselves to the trustworthy without reserve” (“After Ten Years: A Reckoning made at New Year 1943,” p. 12). May we be surrounded by those worthy of trust. May we, by the mercy and grace of God, prove worthy of the same. 

“Love hopes all things.” Life sure feels different when you always expect … at least, in the end … a happy ending. 

“Love endures all things.” Because happy endings sometimes are a long way off, and it can be a grind getting to them. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

A Fix for Our Spiritual Death - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 10/13/2023 •
Friday of the Nineteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 22) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 140; Psalm 142; 2 Kings 23:36–24:17; 1 Corinthians 12:12–26; Matthew 9:27–34 

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

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 22 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Kings: The final years of the Davidic line in Jerusalem are inglorious. Josiah’s reforms are reversed by his son Jehoiachim (609–598 BC) and grandson Jehoiachin/Jeconiah (615/605–597 BC). The curses of Mount Ebal (Deuteronomy 27:15–26; 28:15–68) come upon the nation in its conquest by Babylon: “The LORD will bring you, and the king whom you set over you, to a nation that neither you nor your ancestors have known, where you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone. You shall become an object of horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you” (Deuteronomy 36–37).  

The Babylonians leave behind only “the poorest people of the land,” while carrying away “the elite of the land” and their puppet king, Mattaniah/Zedekiah, Jehoiakin’s uncle (2 Kings 24:14,15,17).  

While, as we will read in days to come, there will be an initial return and restoration of sorts under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, a deeper-seated problem has surfaced. Like all the rest of the nations, Israel is as subject to sin and death as is the rest of the human race. What’s needed is a fix for the universality of our spiritual death, that is, our moral incapacity and our religious rebelliousness. When it comes to the things of God and of finding the capacity to live out what it is to bear his image, we—all of us, Jew and Gentile alike—are diseased, blind, deaf, mute, and lame.  

Matthew: Enter Jesus Christ. The point of Matthew’s account of Jesus’s healing ministry is to show how “Emmanuel” (God-with-us) takes it all into himself, turning disease into health. In today’s accounts, Jesus turns blindness into sight and gives voice to the mute. It’s a part of his fulfillment of Isaiah 53: “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases” (Isaiah 53:4; Matthew 8:17). In his victory at the cross, ultimately, he turns death into life.  

1 Corinthians: Living in the “new creation.” In consequence of which, there is what Paul calls “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15). It’s a reality the Corinthians celebrate but only partially understand. In their “new creation,” they (or at least many of them) act like spoiled brats, basking in a presumed spiritual superiority. They think they’ve arrived at final Kingdom bliss, and they baptize the inequities of this world as though they were God’s confirmation of the superiority of the “haves” and the inferiority of the “have nots.” Paul wants them to see that reality is just the opposite: God chooses the foolish over the wise, the weak over the strong, the low over the high, the despised over the favored, and the “nobodies” over the “somebodies” (1 Corinthians 1:29).  

Therefore, as Paul says, “God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another” (1 Corinthians 12:25). Let the Babylonians pay attention to the elites with their puppet king, and ignore the poorest of the land. Just the opposite prevails in the Kingdom of God, by the mystery of the loving wisdom of God.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Josiah-like Housecleaning - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 10/12/2023 •
Thursday of the Nineteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 22) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 131; Psalm 132; Psalm 133; 2 Kings 23:4–25; 1 Corinthians 12:1–11; Matthew 9:18–26 

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 22 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Kings: Josiah’s war against false gods. King Josiah faces an astounding array of false gods: Baal, Asherah, all the hosts of heaven, the sun, the moon, the constellations, Astarte of the Sidonians, Chemosh of Moab, Milcom of the Ammonites. His relentless, indeed ruthless, quest to purge Judah of all false worship stands as a constant challenge to you and me to purge our hearts and lives of our own “idols,” and instead, to “turn to the LORD with all [our] heart, with all [our] soul, and with all [our] might, according to the law of Moses” (2 Kings 23:25). 

The amazing potpourri that 2 Kings 23 describes is instructive. The heart that opens itself to anything and everything will become dissipated by all the demands, and will be glutted with meaninglessness. In our day we may be less familiar with the ones named. But the apostle Paul lists other kinds of idolatry we know all too well: “their god is their belly” … “greed, which is idolatry” … “lovers of self” (pilautoi) … “lovers of pleasure” (philēdonoi) — Philippians 3:19; Colossians 3:5; 2 Timothy 3:2,4.  

1 Corinthians: Paul’s fight to fill us with the life of God. When such idols occupy our field of vision, we are incapable of discerning the particular way the exquisite and unique manifestation of the Spirit comes our way. That’s why it’s no accident, in my view, that Paul prefaces today’s description of the delicate balance between the unity of the Giver and the multiplicity of the gifts by reminding us what it was like to be “enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak” (1 Corinthians 12:2).   

There is a glorious, even beautiful, resplendence to the internal life of the Triune God: Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ, and God the Father. From each, working in harmony with the others, come to us amazing benefits: from the Spirit, “varieties of gifts,” from the Lord Jesus, “varieties of services (diakoniai),” and from the “God who activates all of them in everyone, …varieties of activities” (1 Corinthians 12:4–7).  

Paul wants each believer to be ready for and available to receive some unique and particular “manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7). He enumerates some of the possibilities, beginning with utterances of wisdom or knowledge, and expressions or acts of faith (see 1 Corinthians 12:8–11).  

If our hearts are preoccupied with substitutes for God (like self, pleasure, money, or food), we can’t make room for the riches the Spirit would pour in. But when the Spirit is working uniquely in each of us “for the common good,” the beauty and resplendence of God’s very life comes to expression, on earth, so to speak, as it is in heaven.  

Making room for that is worth some good Josiah-like housecleaning.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

It's Never Too Late to Choose Life - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 10/11/2023 •
Wednesday of the Nineteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 22) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:145–176; 2 Kings 22:14–23:3; 1 Corinthians 11:23–34; Matthew 9:9–17 

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 22 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

I once had a friend who trained hunting dogs. One day he said, “You can tell you’ve won a dog when, if you discipline them for doing something wrong, they move toward you instead of away from you.”  

From his sickbed, King Hezekiah (739–686 BC) calls to Yahweh, and is healed (2 Kings 20:1–11). His pride, however, leads him foolishly to show off the temple treasury to a Babylonian general (2 Kings 20:12–21; 2 Chronicles 34:25–26). Yahweh pronounces a severe judgment, in response to which Hezekiah repents. Despite his failings, he’s been won to Yahweh.  

Image: Adapted from Reggie Kidd photo 

Hezekiah’s son King Manasseh (709–642/3 BC) moves further and further away from Yahweh, adding one idolatry to another, and one injustice to another. Like Christopher Marlow’s self-dooming Dr. Faustus, Manasseh lowers himself to the “most vile and loathsome filthiness the stench whereof corrupts the inward soul with such flagitious crimes of heinous sin as no commiseration may expel.” And Manasseh has no interest in asking for God’s mercy. For a long 55 years he drags Judah down with him. He’s never been won to Yahweh.  

King Josiah (648–609 BC), grandson of Manasseh, upon reading the long-lost book of the Law (Deuteronomy, in the view of many scholars), asks if the book’s threatened curses have become inevitable. When the answer comes back, “Yes, but you personally will escape them,” Josiah is not content to sit back and enjoy his personal reprieve, knowing the nation he loves, and has been called to serve, will suffer after his death. If it is indeed Deuteronomy that has recently been discovered, Josiah can hold on to the promise that, despite the inevitable consequences of disobedience, there still stands Yahweh’s promise that on the far side of exile there will be a return: “Even if you are exiled to the ends of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back” (Deuteronomy 30:4). Josiah knows it’s never too late to, “Choose life…” (Deuteronomy 30:19). He sets about a massive campaign of reformation because he’s been won to Yahweh.  

The apostle Paul looks for a Hezekiah-like and Josiah-like response among the Corinthians, a church he dearly loves despite their many failings and stumblings. He calls them “beloved” (1 Corinthians 4:14; 10:14). He sincerely believes they are trying to get it right, even though they wildly misunderstand his teachings about resurrection, and, therefore, about when we receive the final delivery of all the good things of our redemption (more to follow, as we continue through 1 Corinthians). He does not believe that they are like the lost generation of the exodus (1 Corinthians 10:1–13) or like fatally idolatrous Manasseh.  

Paul’s warnings, similar to the one he lays down here concerning the Table of the Lord (“If we examined ourselves, we would not be judged”—1 Corinthians 11:31), are designed to bring them to their senses—to remind them that they have indeed been won to the Lord. To that end, he takes them back to that holy night, when Jesus instituted the Lord’s supper. Paul desires that this remembrance will make it all new to them again. Week by week, you and I have the same opportunity to be renewed in God’s gracious provision on display at that Table, and to be won over yet again to his incredible love.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Toward a New Unity in Christ - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 10/10/2023 •
Tuesday of the Nineteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 22) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 120; Psalm 121; Psalm 122; 2 Kings 22:1–13; 1 Corinthians 11:2,17–22; Matthew 9:1–8 

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 22 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Ironically, today’s Daily Office shifts directly from treating us to Josiah’s realization that “great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our ancestors did not obey the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us” (2 Kings 22:13) — from there, to skipping over Paul’s instruction about women and head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16.  

One can only speculate as to the logic of the architects of the Daily Office Lectionary. Perhaps they regretted the way benighted readers of the past applied these verses. Perhaps they felt contemporary readers lack the sophistication required to sleuth out the original context and to tease out any abiding principles. Perhaps they simply found Paul’s views troublesome and worthy of deletion.  

Image: Adapted from Nheyob, cropped by Tahc, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons 

Several interpretive issues in the excluded verses are still hotly disputed among scholars (especially, whether Paul is dealing with head coverings or hair styles). Part of the problem is that we don’t have the full conversation between Paul and his readers, nor are we able to recreate their social world as completely as we’d like.  

Even so, there is one principle here that is important: men and women are redeemed as men and women, not as some sort of neutered third thing. There is a mutuality and complementarity between men and women that redemption does not erase, and that should be preserved in the way we present ourselves to God in worship. Paul explicitly commends the Corinthians for the fact that men and women are both praying and prophesying in church. That is huge, and it is a direct fulfillment of Joel’s promise from Yahweh: “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (Joel 2:28; quoted at Acts 2:17).  

At the same time, even the angelic realm needs to see the distinction between men and women when we worship. Christ has healed the rift that Satan introduced between Adam and Eve in the Garden (“the woman whom thou gavest me to eat…”) by reconciling the sexes, not by obliterating what is distinctive about maleness and femaleness respectively. What’s different now, in Christ, is that public praying and prophesying is not a distinctively male activity. Paul praises the Corinthians in this regard.  

At the Table, however, there is a distinction that is not to be tolerated: that between the “haves” and the “have nots.” Paul blasts the Corinthians because they “humiliate those who have nothing” by inviting them to the community meal late, after the “somebodies” have had their fill and gotten themselves good and drunk. The early “cool kids” get filet and cabernet; the late losers get soda and crackers (speaking metaphorically). In allowing this practice, the Corinthians contribute to the surrounding society’s division, instead of creating a new unity in Christ. They further the factionalism of the world, instead of forming the temple, the house of God’s dwelling (1 Corinthians 3:16). They dismember rather than re-member Christ’s very Body. And that’s a very, very bad thing. Paul won’t even call what they are doing “the Lord’s supper”: “When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper” (1 Corinthians 11:20).  

Fittingly, today’s readings conclude with the Healing of the Paralytic, a display of Jesus’s authority to forgive, and a brief glimpse of the glory he’s come to introduce us to. That same authority calls us to the kind of willing obedience Josiah offers Yahweh. And that same glory lies down the path of men and women as men and women joyfully offering prayers and prophecy in the assembly of the saints. It lies down the path of “haves” and “have nots” sharing Bread and Wine as equals at the Table of the Lord.  

Collect for Proper 22: Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask,  except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Too Many Decisions - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 10/9/2023 •
Monday of the Nineteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 22)  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 106; 2 Kings 21:1–18; 1 Corinthians 10:14–11:1; Matthew 8:28–34 

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 22 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Everybody I know is experiencing decision fatigue. How to manage your own health and that of your family. Your kids’ education. An unusually uncertain job market and overall economy. Our uncivil political and social climate. Which news services do I trust?  

But there’s more to it than that. I realized the other night that I was spending more time scrolling through Netflix or an infinity of offerings on cable, looking for something to watch, than it would have taken to watch something. I found myself wistfully (if naively) recalling “the good old days” of the 1950s and 1960s when you had four choices: ABC, CBS, NBC, and if all else failed PBS.  

Just a parable of the feeling that there are too many decisions and too few guidelines, too few rules.  

Most of us simply have to learn how to live with this reality. Sociologist Peter Berger calls it “the heretical imperative,” the fact that in our world we must make a multitude of choices that for previous generations were pre-determined. You were born into them (class, status, occupation, whom you were going to marry, where you were going to live).  

Without the anchor of the Bible’s perspective, I’m lost. In fact, the Bible seems like it’s written to help people like us.  

“All things are lawful,” acknowledges the apostle Paul. But he’s watched the Corinthians abuse the freedom Christ has won for them. They are suing each other. Some of them are sleeping around. Some are refusing to sleep with their spouses. They are pompously parading their spiritual and temporal blessings.  

In today’s passage from 1 Corinthians, Paul counters with two considerations:  

What benefits other people? — “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up. Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other” (1 Corinthians 9:23–24). On many matters, at least for me, this consideration has simplified the calculus: I got vaxxed, for instance, and I wore a mask in the grocery store for a time for one reason: I care about my neighbor.  

What brings glory to God? “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 9:31). The truth is — I know that reading a good book or playing the piano or working on a drawing project makes me more the person God has called me to be than does sitting in front of a screen. Maybe I’ll put down the remote control.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Words Sent to Mock the Living God - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 10/6/2023 •
Friday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 102; 2 Kings 19:1–20; 1 Corinthians 9:16–27; Matthew 8:1–17 

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 21 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

I love three things especially about the story of Hezekiah and Isaiah in 2 Kings. 

That the king consults the prophet. “When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah…” — 2 Kings 19:5.” Here’s a wonderful picture of interdependence within the Kingdom of God. You complement me, and I complement you. One of us may be more of a doer, and the other more a pray-er. One a leader, the other a petitioner. One a person of action, the other a person of contemplation. We need one another in the Body of Christ.   

That the king lays Sennecharib’s letter before the Lord. “Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; then Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord” — 2 Kings 19:14. I appreciate the physicality of the act of spreading that haughty letter out before the Lord, and crying out, “Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God” (2 Kings 19:16).  

Image: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

I’m sure that the words alone would have sufficed, and that Hezekiah could have prayed from his palace. But he goes to the temple, the place where God says he meets with his people in a particular way. And Hezekiah adds the visual and tactile dimension to the words. To paraphrase: “See, here are the very words the pagan king has sent to mock you! He’s talking about destroying this very place where you and I are meeting. You can’t let him get away with that!” The connection between Hezekiah and Yahweh is so very visceral, existential, and real.  

Scripture records this encounter because we need to see it. Likewise, we need the physicality and the earthiness of the liturgy—all its sensory aids, all its motions and all its “stuff” (sacraments and sacramentals). Without them, faith can just be mere make-believe mind games.  

That God works through contingencies beyond our ability to imagine them. Who would have thought that the deliverance of Judah and Jerusalem would come by internal conflict and division within the enemy army?   

And then, looking briefly at today’s gospel: In Scripture, Israel’s mission in the world, as a “kingdom of priests,” was to do something like what Hezekiah did. That is: to take the brokenness of the human situation and lay it before the Lord, crying out over the millennia, “How long, O God, will the adversary scoff? Will the enemy blaspheme your Name forever?” (Psalm 74:9). And year after year, offering up a sin offering—all this, from a New Covenant perspective, in anticipation of a final doing away with sin and of the restoration of fellowship forever.   

Who would have thought that God’s means of responding to that cry would have been to send his Son in the likeness of our flesh, to overcome sin and all its effects right here in the weakness of our flesh, to “take our infirmities and bear our diseases”? That is what the prophet Isaiah, to whom Hezekiah went, foresaw happening. That is what Matthew depicts in today’s Gospel reading. Jesus heals a leper, a paralytic, demon-possessed person, and all kinds of sick people. Each healing is a foretaste of his conquest of sin on the cross and his banishment of death at his resurrection. Each is a demonstration of what Isaiah had prophesied: “This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, ‘He took our infirmities and bore our diseases’” (Matthew 8:17, quoting Isaiah 53:4). Praise be! 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

You Don’t Mess Around With the Lord - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 10/5/2023 •
Thursday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105; 2 Kings 18:28–37; 1 Corinthians 9:1–15; Matthew 7:22–29 

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 21 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Life seems to afford abundant opportunities to make monumentally bad decisions. One of them, Jim Croce sings, is to mess around with “the pool-shootin’ son of a gun,” Big Jim Walker:  

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape 
You don’t spit into the wind 
You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger 
And you don’t mess around with Jim.  
(Jim Croce, 1972, from the album Photographs and Memories) 

Today’s readings recall some “you don’t mess around” moments, except these passages are talking about Somebody much bigger than Big Jim Walker.  

2 Kings: You don’t mock the Deliverer of Israel. The King of Assyria has been plowing his way through the Ancient Near East. He’s brought down one kingdom after another, razing capital city after capital city. He’s destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, and he has dispersed its citizens abroad.  

Now his army stands outside the gates of Jerusalem, ready to demolish the city of God and level the temple consecrated to Yahweh. Yet he makes a fatal mistake: he mocks Yahweh the Deliverer (in our translation, the LORD). “Do not let Hezekiah make you rely on the LORD by saying, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ … Do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered its land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who among all the gods of the countries have delivered their countries out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’” (2 Kings 18:30,32b–35).  

It’s hard not to imagine (pardon the anthropocentrism) Yahweh’s ears perking up just a little more every time he hears his name being mocked—four times here! As we will see in tomorrow’s (and the weekend’s) reading, this abject failure to reckon with Yahweh, the Deliverer of his people, the God whose story is so vividly recounted in today’s Psalm 105 (“He turned their waters into blood … Their land was overrun by frogs … He spoke, and the locust came … He struck down the firstborn of their land … He led out his people with silver and gold”—see Psalm 105:29,30,34,36,37), will lead to an implosion within the Assyrian ranks. The Assyrian king will find himself forced to vacate the field and leave Jerusalem and Judah safe. That’s right, You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.  

1 Corinthians: You don’t demand your rights from King Jesus. It’s striking how much energy Paul expends helping entitled Christians recalibrate their understanding of what’s due them in the Kingdom of God. The “king’s kids” in Corinth want it all: justice through the courts (1 Corinthians 6), freedom either from sexual constraints (1 Corinthians 6) or from domestic responsibilities (1 Corinthians 7), license to display their supposedly enlightened consciences (1 Corinthians 8).  

Throughout 1 Corinthians, Paul calls on them to see things differently. The Christian life is not about asserting your rights. It’s about using privileges and advantages to improve the lot of others. In today’s passage, he describes how he has the right to be married and to receive a salary as a minister of the gospel … but how he foregoes that right because he does not want to put “an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:12). Scholars think that Paul means that if he exercised his “right” to financial support from the Corinthians, they would demand the “right” to control his message. He’s not going to play their game. He wants them to see what it is to imitate Christ who, “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). Jesus Christ isn’t about demanding rights, but about surrendering them for the sake of others. Right again, You don’t spit into the wind. 

You don’t not act on Jesus’s words. You don’t fill a thick notebook with nice notes on the Sermon on the Mount, and yet fail to do what Jesus says there. After listening to him, you don’t lash out when you’re angry. You don’t hold grudges. You don’t not rein in your wandering eyes. You don’t exit out the back door when marriage gets rough. You don’t cross your fingers when you make a promise. You don’t not tame your tongue. You don’t do religious stuff so others can see how religious you are. You don’t let your possessions possess you. You don’t worry endlessly about the kingdom of self. You don’t get “judgy” towards others. You don’t do to others what you’d never want them to do to you. Because, You don’t tug the mask on that old Lone Ranger.  

And, no, just no, you don’t mess around with the Lord of the Universe. He loves you too much to let you get away with that. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Love vs. Knowledge - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 10/4/2023 •
Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 101; Psalm 109; 2 Kings 18:9–25; 1 Corinthians 8:1–13; Matthew 7:13–21 

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 21 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

1 Corinthians: “love” versus “knowledge” 

I’ve only known a few people who live in fear of oppressive spiritual forces, fewer still who know the joy of being liberated from them by Christ. The conceit of modernity is to have banished God from the heavens and the devil from hell, leaving us alone in the universe (apart, perhaps, from UFO, or UAP, that is, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena sightings).  

It wasn’t this way in Paul’s day. The heavens were filled with beings who could help you or harm you. One of the chief ends of religious observation was to enlist good powers to your aid, and to ward off evil dominions and authorities. In his letters to the Colossians and the Ephesians, Paul tackles these issues head on, assuring believers that Christ is their Champion and that he has defanged hostile powers (see especially Colossians 1:15–20; 2:15; Ephesians 1:20–23).  

Image: Internet Archive Book Images, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons 

Some, but not all, Corinthian believers have gotten the message loud and clear. Christ’s resurrection has proved the impotence, indeed the nothingness, of “so-called gods in heaven and earth.” This is a liberating knowledge for these Christians, and Paul affirms them in it: “[Y]et for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Corinthians 8:6).  

One implication of this wonderful reality is that for Paul (and Corinthian believers with liberated consciences), marketplace meat that had previously been consecrated to pagan deities no longer carried the stench of idolatry. That taint disappeared with Christ’s resurrection. Now, it’s just meat, part of a good God’s created order, and a gift for our enjoyment and nourishment. As Paul will write later in 1 Timothy 4:4–5, “For every creation of God is good and no food is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is sanctified by God’s word and by prayer” (New English Translation).  

Not all members of the Corinthian church, though, have come to this realization. For them, the smell of idolatry still clings to meat that had been consecrated to pagan deities prior to being brought to market. Paul is more disappointed to find out that the “liberated” Corinthians lovelessly flaunt their “knowledge” in the face of their unenlightened brothers and sisters than he is that the conscience-stricken believers don’t know enough about the radical freedom that Christ has bought for them: “‘Food will not bring us close to God.’ We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. 9 But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. … [B]y your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. 12 But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ” (1 Corinthians 8:8–12). 

For Paul—and here’s the lesson for us—love eclipses knowledge: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Corinthians 8:1b). As he will write later in this letter in a related context, that of Communion, we are supposed to “wait for one another” (1 Corinthians 11:33c). Waiting for one another means not just making sure that everybody gets Communion before the service proceeds, it means making sure that progressive consciences don’t trample on traditionalist consciences.  

We’re not to be the people who grow up in strict temperance homes who discover “Christian liberty,” and then insist on indulging our new-found enjoyment of “adult beverages” in the face of recovering alcoholics. We’re not allowed to let “knowledge” trample on “love.”  

We’re not to be the people who embrace new theological insights (whether it’s the discovery of rich sacramentalism, or the ultimate solution for reconciling God’s sovereignty and human free will, or a satisfying approach to the end times), and then scoff patronizingly at supposed dullards who believe what we used to believe, or who are still mired in confusion or ambiguity or apathy.   

Over the next several chapters of 1 Corinthians, Paul lays out his desire that we sublimate our rights for the sake of serving one another (especially 1 Corinthians 9), that the powerful and the “important” people make room for the powerless and the “unimportant” (especially 1 Corinthians 11), that we learn to revel in the diversity of gifts in the Body (especially 1 Corinthians 12), and that, above all, we learn the way of love (especially 1 Corinthians 13), where love, as regards one another, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). 

Such “love” is itself the most convincing proof of the “knowledge” we have of Christ’s preeminence over all “so-called gods.”   

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

A Showcase of God's Love - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 10/3/2023 •
Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; 2 Chronicles 29:1-3; 30:1–27; 1 Corinthians 7:32–40; Matthew 7:1–12 

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 21 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Chronicles. The Daily Office’s tour of the history of the monarchy from Saul through David and Solomon and the divided kingdom thus far has followed the narrative of Samuel and Kings. The perspective has been rather gloomy, because this portion of Holy Writ was written during the Babylonian exile.  

Today, we take a brief side trip into the parallel narrative in 2 Chronicles, an account written after the end of Judah’s exile in Babylon. The perspective is different because the situation is different. We look ahead for a moment to the time when Ezra and Nehemiah have rallied the people of God to offer thankful worship for the restoration of their fortunes, and to celebrate the rebuilding of the city of God and its temple. From that perspective, 2 Chronicles looks back on the reign of one of the good kings of pre-exilic Judah, Hezekiah.  

Image: "Stained glass window, Ely Cathedral" by Jules & Jenny is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

Three points are worthy of note: 

1. Hezekiah’s call for unity of worship. Since the Garden of Eden, the bitter fruit of the rift between us and God has been the near infinity of rifts between humans, beginning with Adam and Eve’s mutual recriminations and Cain’s envious slaying of Abel. From that day on, God has been working to heal both the rift between heaven and earth, and all those rifts here on earth as well. God united a kingdom of worship, justice, and mercy under David and Solomon as a demonstration to the world of his own loving and reconciling purposes. Those purposes took a step backward when Rehoboam’s arrogance borne of entitlement and Jeroboam’s defiance borne of envy led to the division of the Kingdom … and thus to division in worship.  

Hezekiah is mindful of God’s calling a united people to be a holy nation and kingdom of priests. He therefore invites people from the estranged northern kingdom of Israel to come to Jerusalem so that there could be healing between north and south, and so that God’s people could worship the way they were supposed to worship, “together” with “one heart” (2 Chronicles 30:12,13). Alas, very few northerners respond: “Only a few from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem” (2 Chronicles 30:11). Nonetheless, “The hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do what the king and the officials commanded by the word of the Lord. Many people came together in Jerusalem to keep the festival of unleavened bread in the second month, a very large assembly” (2 Chronicles 30:12–13). Hezekiah represents a brief moment in which God’s people are once again something of a showcase and a greenhouse of Yahweh’s reconciling love.  

2. Hezekiah’s desire to worship “by the book,” but his display of flexibility. By the book, Passover is to take place in the first month of the year (Exodus 12:2,6); however, in this case, many people are unable to “sanctify themselves” in time. So, Hezekiah, in consultation with his officials and indeed the whole assembly, moves the celebration to the second month (2 Chronicles 30:2). He is otherwise careful to make sure that things are done “according to the law of Moses the man of God” (2 Chronicles 30:16). Even then, not everyone comes to Passover “sanctified,” and some people partake unworthily (we are spared the details). But rather than calling down the wrath of God, Hezekiah prays: “The good Lord pardon all who set their hearts to seek God, the Lord the God of their ancestors, even though not in accordance with the sanctuary’s rules of cleanness. The Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people” (2 Chronicles 30:19).  

(As someone who tries earnestly to do all things, especially worship, “by the book,” but is aware of constantly falling short, I am grateful—profoundly grateful—for this note of kingly flexibility and divine condescension.) 

3. Hezekiah’s and the people’s joy at the presence of Yahweh in their midst. “There was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the time of Solomon son of King David of Israel there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem. Then the priests and the Levites stood up and blessed the people, and their voice was heard; their prayer came to his holy dwelling in heaven” (2 Chronicles 30:26–27). Worship is indeed wondrously joyful when it captures the holiness and the kindness of our great God! 

1 Corinthians. Paul’s advice in today’s passage is a bit hard to discern. It’s likely that he advises engaged couples to slow down and consider not marrying so they can give themselves exclusively to the Lord’s work. Pointedly, Paul is offering counsel in this matter; he is not demanding obedience (“it is no sin” to marry, 1 Corinthians 7:36c). He believes that the Holy Spirit is at work in believers, and that this Spirit of wisdom and counsel enables us to discern how to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God (Romans 12:1–2).  

Nonetheless, Paul believes in the overwhelming urgency of the need to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. He understands we are all called to contribute to God’s house building project. He understands that we are living the reality which Hezekiah foreshadowed (see 1 Corinthians 3; Ephesians 2). And he wants us to know for certain that all other values have become second-tier considerations in view of the emergence of the Kingdom of God in our day. Therefore, Paul wants us all to take a breath and assess how we are investing our lives.  

Matthew. Some amazing wisdom as Jesus begins to wrap up his Sermon on the Mount: Don’t be “judgy” towards people around you, but rather extend the same sort of grace to others that the Lord has extended to you (Matthew 7:1–5). Don’t be so quick to offer advice that you fail first to assess how welcome it will be (Matthew 7:6). When it comes to your needs, pray first, and do so trustingly (Matthew 7:7–11). Above all, treat others the way you’d like them to treat you (Matthew 7:12).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Confused "King's Kids" - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 10/2/2023 •
Monday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21)  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89; 2 Kings 17:24–41; 1 Corinthians 7:25–31; Matthew 6:25–34 

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 21 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Matthew. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” — Matthew 6:34c KJV. I’m not really quite the Eeyore I publicly present myself to be. However, I admit I am a bit of a worrier. So this saying of Jesus has anchored my soul for years (it’s also the first phrase I teach my Greek students … and I encourage them to memorize it: ἀρκετὸν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἡ κακία αὐτῆς). It sums up Jesus’s teaching in this entire paragraph: each day brings its challenges, but each day also promises God’s provision. Oh, brother, do I hang onto that! Praise be!  

Image adapted from Amitchell125, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons 

Our Old Testament and Epistle readings shore up the teaching: 

2 Kings. “Then the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there; let him go and live there, and teach them the law of the god of the land.” So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel; he taught them how they should worship the Lord. But every nation still made gods of its own…” — 2 Kings 17:27–29a.   

Being in the ministry myself, I can’t not think about the perspective of the lone priest whom the Assyrians send back into Israel. They sent him to teach the ways of Yahweh to pagan newcomers whom the Assyrians themselves have used to resettle the land, as well as to that minority of Israelites who had been left behind after the deportation.  

What a discouraging scenario this priest faces. His Assyrian overlords think he’s representing a merely territorial deity. The newly arrived Assyrians are not about to abandon the deities they’ve brought with them. And the local Israelites have been accustomed for so long to syncretistic ways (fusing religious systems), that they are perfectly content to reconcile their loyalty to Yahweh with the pagan ways of their new neighbors.  

How does this priest get up every day and face the same eyerolls and insincere head-nods? He does so, I imagine, because he knows in advance, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” The only measure of success is faithfulness to the call. That goes for all of us—not just professional clergy.  

1 Corinthians. There’s also the perspective that Paul must maintain for himself and also must inculcate among his readers in 1 Corinthians. Christians in Corinth have mistakenly gotten the idea that with Jesus’s resurrection from the dead and with their own spiritual regeneration, they have come into the full experience of “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15). Because they have “arrived” (so they think), they don’t think they need a physical resurrection. They think they are “kings,” already reigning with Christ, and that they are “rich” with all the fullness of the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 4:8). They’ve allowed themselves, therefore, to confuse the blessings of this world (status, wealth, and either freedom of, or freedom from, full sexual expressiveness) with God’s (better) ultimate blessings. Too many Corinthians look down on the little people, the “foolish,” the “weak,” the “low and despised in this world, things that are not” (in the Greek, “the nobodies,” yes, literally, “the nobodies” — 1 Corinthians 1:27–28).  

It’s led them to overvalue their present life status. And so, Paul writes:  

“I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away” — 1 Corinthians 7:29–31 NRSV.  

Paul is not saying that spouses need not love one another. He’s not saying that neither sad nor happy feelings should be felt. He’s not saying that possessions and endeavors in this life are a waste of time.  

Paul is saying that we still live in anticipation of Christ’s return, and that until then we live with less than perfection. He is saying we dare not demand from a spouse an infinite love that only Christ can supply. He is saying that we cannot expect in this life a completely whole emotional life. He is saying that possessions must not possess us. He is saying that in our worldly affairs we will not accomplish all our hearts desire, even when our desires are that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That day will not arrive until the Lord returns in triumphant glory.  

Until then, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Christ (not the other stuff) is our hope, as Paul says elsewhere (1 Timothy 1:1). And that’s good enough, because Christ is good enough.   

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+