Powerlessness and New Life by Brian Stankich

A friend recently expressed to me a sense of feeling 'powerless' and it has captured my sentiments as of late. Many of the experiences we share focus on not being able to do something, not having something or having something different than what we want. In a time of crisis, the things that jump out at us are the things that are different. Because those things tend to be hard - pain, suffering, inability, lack - we disdain the crisis as an interference with our lives. It's possible though, that, rather than being an interference, those hard things are helpers: pointing us to a different way than what we have made for ourselves in daily, normal life.

In the prayer of confession from the Book of Common Prayer’s Office of Compline, prayed before bed each night, we ask God, "grant that we may serve you in newness of life." Reflecting on this, it seems odd that in a prayer of confession where we are focusing our hearts on sin, faults, and offenses, we finish by asking God for newness of life. 

When my own heart is in confession mode, I tend to be focused on what's wrong with me. I come to God with my weakness, mistakes, and sins feeling bad that I have hurt him and others and not lived up to his desires for me or the desires I have for myself because of God's redemption of me. In contrast, the end of this prayer seems intent on switching my focus from self to God - from sin to salvation - from hurt to joy. 

In other words, newness of life comes at just the right time: when I am beaten down. Newness of life comes to pull me out of an over exaggerated focus on my needs, my lack, my wants. Newness of life comes when I need it- when I’m powerless. 

Isn’t this the good news of the Gospel? Newness of life comes. Period. It comes. We don't go get it. We can't make it happen on our own. We can't buy it, hoard it or borrow it. It's been given to us. We confess it at the end of the prayer of confession because we are confessing - saying, admitting - that we want to walk in this newness of life that only God can give. 

This phrase actually comes from Saint Paul in Romans 6, in the context of baptism and the resurrected life it precedes as we continue to choose Jesus. And here we find the amazing connection between powerlessness and us: resurrection. Newness of life is the resurrected life of Jesus. We gain the resurrected life of Jesus when we give the power of owning our own lives up to God. "Grant that we may serve you in newness of life."

The same power that raised Jesus from death raises us to life. We confess and he empowers. We humble ourselves, like Jesus did, and he raises us up with a new way or option to live. Powerlessness is the door we walk through to access our future life.

In a way then, powerlessness feels good. It's a relieving recognition that we are not in ultimate control. Powerlessness removes the facade of our strength and our initiatives to do something entirely on our own, apart from God's involvement.

This question of the heart must be answered by each of us: Who do we want to have control of our life? God, who has the power and is making all things new? Or ourselves, who have limited power, and on our best days, are only seeking to make our own lives more comfortable? The exact opposite of what Jesus did.

The fact that the coronavirus and this sense of powerlessness comes during Lent is a gift to us. Of all people on the face of the earth, we Christians can see through the veil of fear that the human heart is spreading among the masses. We know God is control because Jesus was in the tomb. And then he wasn't. Now he reigns victoriously over all of creation, including in our own hearts. The same power...the same God...the same story we hear every year.

This year is different. This Easter season is different. We have before our very eyes, in our flesh and heart and mind, the opportunity to discover what newness of life is, what it is that we are asking God to give us. Every week we confess "grant that we may serve you in newness of life." Now we can sense what it is: recognizing that God is in control and we are not. And the joy that comes with trusting a good God for his plan in our lives to unfold as he sees fit.

We “know” a lot of these things from the Bible, but to understand them, we have to experience them. Isn't God good to give us a life full of experiences so that we can know him more? 

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Noonday Prayer

Thanks for joining us for Noonday Prayer! Peter Tepper will begin at 12:05pm You can follow along with the service in the Book of Common Prayer on page 103 o...

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 103; Exodus 12:28-39; 1 Corinthians 15:12-28; Mark 16:9-20

This morning’s Canticles are: “Christ Our Passover” (BCP, p. 83); following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

Collect for Tuesday in Easter Week. O God, who by the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light: Grant that we, who have been raised with him, may abide in his presence and rejoice in the hope of eternal glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be dominion and praise for ever and ever. Amen.

Our bodies sustain life by a rhythm of breathing in and breathing out. The Daily Office provides a parallel rhythm by which our inner being may sustain life as well. Reading Scripture is the way we breathe in. The combination of worshiping and praying is the way we breathe out. For many years my own morning devotions consisted mostly of reading Scripture to see what I could learn. A lot of breathing in. Discovering the Anglican tradition changed a lot of things for me. One of those was the way I approach morning devotions. I now see the importance of breathing out: of making worship and prayer a part of morning devotions. 

Breathing back praise is as important as breathing in knowledge. During the season of Easter, the Daily Office commends the song Pascha Nostrum (“Christ our Passover”) a collection of verses from Paul’s letters that Thomas Cranmer pieced together in the 1540s. During these seven weeks of Easter (or at least for much of it), we plan to include this song in our Sunday worship in the portion where the Gloria normally appears. And throughout the Easter season, the Daily Office commends reading or singing it at the beginning of morning devotions. 

The Pascha Nostrum is three stanzas long, each stanza focusing on a different aspect of our Easter hope. 

The first stanza consists of 2 Corinthians 5:7-8, bracketed by “Alleluias”:

Alleluia.
Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us; *
therefore let us keep the feast,
Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, *
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Alleluia.

As blood from the slain Passover lambs led the angel of death to pass over the houses of the Israelites, so Christ’s shed blood rescues his people from sin and death. For Paul, the unleavened bread of the Jewish Passover comes into sharp focus for those experiencing Christ as their Passover. They start a new life characterized by sincerity and truth, leaving behind an old life marked by slavery to malice and evil. That’s worth at least a couple of “Alleluias.”

The second stanza consists of Romans 6:9-11, and concludes with “Alleluia”: 

Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; *
death no longer has dominion over him.
The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all; *
but the life he lives, he lives to God.
So also consider yourselves dead to sin, *
and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Alleluia.

There is a staggering likeness between Christ’s death and ours. Because he died once, he can never die again. Because in our baptism we too “die,” death no longer has any claim on us. That’s not just a promise that we are going to heaven. It means that in the very present, we can say to the walking death of a sinful life: “That’s not me anymore.” We can walk—we really can!—“alive to God in Jesus Christ.” And, yes, of course: “Alleluia.”

The third stanza consists of 1 Corinthians 15:20-22, and rounds out the whole song with a final “Alleluia.”

Christ has been raised from the dead, *
the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
For since by a man came death, *
by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, *
so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Alleluia.

Christ’s followers do not share the world’s despair over there being “no justice in the world.” We believe that when all the chips are called in, the whole problem of human suffering—death, disease, decay, destruction, depression—all of it will have found its resolution in the suffering unto death and victory over death of One Man, Jesus Christ. The one necessary thing, in the end, is to be found to be in him. “Alleluia.” 

“Alleluia.” 

“Alleluia.” 

Enjoy this version by the King’s College Chapel Choir

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlOIQ-TWToE

And join us Sunday as Melissa Ramb and Brian Bruder chant the beautiful “Oxford Chant” version in the Hymnal at S-48. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Noonday Prayer

Thanks for joining us for Noonday Prayer! Peter Tepper will begin at 12:05pm You can follow along with the service in the Book of Common Prayer on page 103 o...

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalms 93; 98; Exodus 12:14-27; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Mark 16:1-8

This morning’s Canticles are: “Christ Our Passover” (BCP, p. 83); following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (Isaiah 12:2-6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)

So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. — Mark 16:1-8. Today’s gospel reading is the so-called “Shorter Ending” of Mark’s Gospel. Most versions of the Bible include a note indicating that verses 9-20 do not appear in our oldest and best manuscripts. They appear to have been added by the later church because people felt that something was missing.

An original ending to Mark’s gospel, describing Jesus meeting his disciples in Galilee and giving them the Great Commission (as in Matthew), telling them then to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit (as in Luke), or actually breathing God’s Spirit into them (as in John), may indeed have accidentally been lost. 

Or, as a minority of scholars (and I with them) wonder, perhaps Mark knew that his readers knew “the rest of the story” (apologies to Paul Harvey), but also reckoned that they were going to have to find confidence to live “the rest of the story” in dangerous times. After all, Jesus had taught all along that even though he was going to rise from the dead, those who were willing to follow him were going to have to take up their cross, be baptized with a baptism in the likeness of his death, and drink their share of his cup of suffering (Mark 8:31-35; 10:32-40). 

It’s possible Mark ended his gospel this way on purpose to remind readers of their need to decide if they are willing to pay the price of following the resurrected Christ. And, of course, it’s still also possible that it is sheer providence that this is the oldest ending we have, and that the original ending is lost to us. Either way, we are left to decide whether we are going to overcome our own fears and metaphorically meet Jesus “in Galilee,” and receive our own commission to minister in his Name and by the power of his Spirit.  

…when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down. — Exodus 12:23. Mark leaves us with sobering thoughts on an Easter Monday. Hunkering down in homes protected from the angel of death only by blood smeared above and to the sides of the door—that was sobering, too. As was sharing a meal in preparation for a dangerous journey of deliverance.  

Living in dangerous times ourselves—whether because of the current health crisis, and the attending economic rivalries and racial divides it is unmasking; whether because of the acrimonious political climate of our own country and the violent clashes in hot spots around the world—it is good for us to be reminded of the singular message of hope we bring, at whatever cost, to such a world in such times. 

For I handed on to you as of first importance… — 1 Corinthians 15:3. That’s what Paul reminds us of in today’s epistle. This is good news that he says is “of first importance”: Christ died for our sins, and did so according to Scripture. That he was buried (that is, he was genuinely dead), only to be raised from the dead on the third day—again, just as Scripture had promised. That his return from the dead was testified to both by a large number of faithful followers, and by at least one skeptic (his brother James) and by one hardened denier (Paul himself). 

In the face of anything that conspires to replace your confidence with fear, and your faith with despair, I pray the Lord gives you fresh courage this Easter for your journey to meet him “in Galilee” this side of his empty tomb. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Easter Sunday Service

Join us as we celebrate our risen King Jesus. The service is led by The Very Reverend Dr Reggie Kidd. The sermon is delivered by The Right Reverend Greg Brew...

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; Lamentations 3:37-58; Hebrews 4:1-16

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 12 (“Song of Creation,” BCP, p. 88); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94) 

Collect for Holy Saturday. O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so may we await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

My friend and my neighbor you have put away from me, and darkness is my only companion. — Psalm 88:19. “This coronavirus situation plays into my overwhelming fear of abandonment,” said a friend the other day. Many people right now are feverishly working, too many of them at great peril to their own health: manning medical facilities, delivering goods, manufacturing equipment, serving up take-out orders, hauling off trash. At the same time, many people, like my friend, are stuck in an isolation that feels like Psalm 88’s: “You have put my friends far from me … I am in prison and cannot get free” (verse 9). We have desperately sick relatives out of state, whom we can’t visit. Loved ones in locked-down assisted living facilities. Families who can’t bury a deceased grandparent or parent or spouse or child. Weddings on hold. Bad cases of cabin fever. 

My wife tells me that, in her experience, the last couple of months of her pregnancies were filled with an uncomfortable waiting. Each baby’s arrival was an eagerly awaited event. In the meantime, however, she knew long days waiting for night because they were so tiring, and long nights waiting for day because they were so uncomfortable. While the exhaustion and the discomfort didn’t prevent the inevitability of birth, there were times when they threatened to overshadow the joy that was, indeed, around the corner. 

The fact that this year we can’t share all the fanfare that makes Easter a spectacular “Easterpalooza” doesn’t prevent Easter from coming. The devil’s best shot couldn’t keep Jesus in the grave. And a coronavirus need not keep Easter’s “Alleluia” from gracing your lips tomorrow as you are freshly grasped by the precious truth that “He is risen.” And just so, the shared misery that currently has taken hold of the whole earth makes all the more bracing the urging in today’s epistle: “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). 

Recently, another friend spoke into a meeting of people frantically trying to “save Easter” with all sorts of over-the-top ideas. She said simply this: “Be still, and know that I am God.” Be still. The frenzy stopped. The room grew quiet. I think we all understood something freshly: we don’t “save” Easter. Easter saves us. All we have to do is wait…and receive. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Good Friday Liturgy of the Word Service

Good Friday Ministry of the Word Service Bishop Brewer Preaching Dean Reggie Kidd Officiating Friday, April 10, 2020 12:05 p.m. Download a bulletin here: htt...

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 22; Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-33; 1 Peter 1:10-20; Mark 10:32-45

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 14 (Prayer of Manasseh 1-2, 4, 6-7, 11-15, BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 94)

Collect for Good Friday. Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

…before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times. — John 13:38. Today is Good Friday. It’s a day for us to remember Jesus Christ’s death, but also, as Peter’s denial reminds us, of the sins that made his death necessary. These sad words to Peter leave me at a loss for words, because of the many ways I daily deny Jesus myself—in thought, word, and deed. 

Today’s passage in Lamentations gives me words to lend hope to my own lament. Today’s passage in 1 Peter reminds me of just what it is that makes Good Friday good. 

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases…. — Lamentations 3:22. This third chapter of Lamentations depicts Judah/Jerusalem’s sufferings in ways that strikingly anticipate Christ’s Good Friday sufferings. Bearing the rod of God’s wrath, flesh and skin wasting away, sitting in darkness, prayer seeming to be shut out, wormwood and gall. And yet, hope. Such hope that, right in the middle of the agony of suffering, a song breaks out: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’”

We know that Psalm 22 was on Jesus’s mind as he hung on Good Friday’s cross. He quoted that song of dual suffering and hope (it begins “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” but pivots to “You answered me. I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will sing hymns to you” — Psalm 22:1, 21). 

Lamentations 3 was there in case he needed it as well. It’s there for us too, when we feel besieged and enveloped by bitterness and tribulation, sitting in darkness feeling like we’re already dead (Lamentations 3:5-6). Right then and right there is when and where to sing: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases….” The dark night of Good Friday’s death broke for Jesus on Easter morning. As a result, death’s dark night breaks for his followers, too. 

…the Spirit of Christ…testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory. — 1 Peter 1:11. Easter prompts me to remember the many Old Testament Scriptures that had pointed to the life and saving work of Jesus Christ long before his appearances on earth. On the Emmaus road after his resurrection, Jesus explained to two disciples “the things about himself in all the scriptures” (Luke 24:27). I’m reminded of how movie directors charm audiences by embedding “Easter eggs” inside their films. You can find Alfred Hitchcock appearances in his films, and Stan Lee in Marvel Comic Universe movies, for example. You’ll find images of Star Wars’ R2-D2 and C-3PO in the hieroglyphics of a pillar in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Look closer, the directors say. 

Peter tells us angels have been looking closer for a long time. His sweeping statement about the advance notice of Christ’s suffering and glory in the Old Testament invites us, too, to look and find God’s Easter eggs hidden throughout his Word: 

• The Seed who will strike the Serpent’s head, despite suffering a bruised heel (Genesis 3).

• Escape from a storm of judgment in an ark built by the One Righteous Man, with a new start signaled by a rainbow (Genesis 6-9).

• The sparing of a beloved son by the substitution of a ram (Genesis 22).

• A snake lifted up on a tree for the healing of people snake-bit by the power of sin (Numbers 21).  

• After three days and three nights in the belly of “a great fish,” deliverance unto life, and the renewal of a call to prophetic ministry (the whole book of Jonah). 

So, despite everything—Judas’s betrayal, Peter’s (and my) denial, the whimsicality and the vitriol of the crowds, the obscene injustice of religious and political authorities—Good Friday is good because it marks the pivot point in the long epic of God’s unspeakable love and unstoppable plan. Because of Good Friday, the Great Vigil’s song can ring out in praise of the God who “casts out pride and hatred, and brings peace and concord,” joining earth and heaven, and God and humankind. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Maundy Thursday Noonday Service

Thanks for joining us for Maundy Thursday Noonday Prayer! The Very Reverend Dr Reggie Kidd will begin at 12:05pm. Music Provided by Canon Josh Bales and Dean...

Daily Devotions with the Dean

Today’s Scriptures (not from the Daily Office) are: Ecclesiastes 3:1,4,5b; John 13:1-20, 34-35; Philippians 2:4-11; 1 Timothy 5:10. 

I’ll get back to the Daily Office tomorrow. Today, though, is Maundy Thursday, and I can’t not be thinking about what Christ-followers normally do today: wash each other’s feet, share the Bread and the Cup, and take stock of the New Commandment that we love one another as Christ has loved us.

Charged with caring for a portion of Christ’s flock, I’ve had to think hard and prayerfully about how we do those things in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. 

Two strands of thought have been on my mind.

First, these words from Ecclesiastes:

For everything there is a season, 

and a time for every matter under heaven…

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;…

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing (Ecclesiastes 3:1,4,5b). 

Above all things, Maundy Thursday is an occasion of love. After all, it’s named after Jesus’s “mandate” that we love one another. Given that there is a “time” for everything, I have to ask: if during this time, the close proximity of washing your feet means I may be infecting you with a virus, am I really loving you? If my hands are supposed to be ministering the Bread of Life, but accidentally dispense contagion, am I really loving you? And if our Cup of Blessing winds up being a cup of cursing, are we really loving one another? 

If love is our mandate, it’s better, in my judgment, to see in our unique moment in history “a time to refrain from embracing.” I ache to celebrate these things, but I know that there will come again “a time to embrace.” 

Second, an analogy commonly used to explain how Ministry of Word and Ministry of Sacrament complement each other offers this wisdom: We have two eyes, not a single eye, so that through triangulation, we can have depth perception. It’s not that we can’t see with just one eye, but with two we can more completely. So it is with spiritual sight: words speak to the more logical side of our brains, while taste and touch speak to the more intuitive side. When Word and Sacrament work together, we experience a wonderful sort of spiritual “3-D.” 

However, following the mandate of love, we are relying, for the moment, more on the Ministry of the Word. In this moment, perhaps one benefit for all of us can be that we lean into and renew our sense of the power of the Ministry of the Word. Fasting from the physical bread and cup may possibly allow God’s Word freshly to impress upon us the wonder of Jesus himself being Bread from Heaven and the True Vine (John 6 & 15). And what joy there will be when we can fully engage both “eyes” again: sharing the Body and the Blood, exchanging the kiss of peace, kneeling in prayer shoulder to shoulder. 

One of the great things about Jesus’s washing of his disciples’ feet is that it is fraught with symbolic significance. Since (unless you are going to practice your own footwashing in your home tonight) as a Cathedral family, we are having to forego taking towel & basin to each other’s feet this year, let me offer brief observations from God’s Word about its symbolic weight. 

First, footwashing is a profound parable of the whole project of incarnation — nowhere else is the parabola of Jesus’ “stooping low” to raise sinners more graphically portrayed. After reading John 13, then read Philippians 2. See if Christ’s humbling himself with towel and basin isn’t a mini-tableau of the whole redemptive drama. He who was, and is, equal with God humbles himself in the profoundest service to humankind, and then is exalted to receive the Name that is above every name. 

Second, Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet is a compelling picture of our need for his ongoing ministry to renew and cleanse us. Though, like Peter who comes to the meal already bathed, we have been completely washed in our baptism, and therefore don’t ever need to be baptized again; we nonetheless get our feet dirty, and, as humiliating as it is, we need to admit that truth and accept the ongoing cleansing work of Jesus through the Holy Spirit. We remain sinners in need of grace, and thus our baptism needs to be renewed over and over again. We do this, in part, by thankfully contemplating the benefits of our baptism, by humbly confessing the ways we walk contrary to our baptism, and by worshipfully endeavoring to yield to the Spirit’s ongoing work to transform us into the image of Christ. 

Third, for the apostle Paul, “washing the feet of the saints” became shorthand for a lifestyle of meeting the needs of others. In Paul’s list of qualifications for “enrolled widows,” the phrase “washing the feet of the saints” stands between “receiving strangers and “relieving the afflicted.” The objects of service are different: “strangers, saints, and the afflicted,” but the same attitude is expressed to all: a spirit of humble self-giving (see 1 Timothy 5:10).

During this season, I urge you to take special thought to assume the posture of kneeling in service to others. That may very well not involve physically washing anyone’s feet, but it may mean: 

• providing groceries for a food bank; 

• being mindful of, saying thanks to, and even being ready to raise a voice on behalf of people who work at jobs at low wages and high risk to serve the needs of others who are sheltering-in-place; 

• calling to check in on someone; 

• ordering pizza for the local fire department; 

• offering to do some chore in your home that’s not normally yours. 

Closing today with this hymn, a prayer of thanks to Jesus for coming in lowliness and humility, so he could raise us to heavenly heights: 

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor,
All for love’s sake becamest poor;
Thrones for a manger didst surrender,
Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.
Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor,
All for love’s sake becamest poor.

Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love’s sake becamest man;
Stooping so low, but sinners raising
Heavenwards by thine eternal plan.
Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love’s sake becamest man.

Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Savior and King, we worship thee.
Emmanuel, within us dwelling,
Make us what thou wouldst have us be.
Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Savior and King, we worship thee.

Frank Houghton, 1934, © OMF

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Frank Houghton (1894-1972) was an evangelical Anglican bishop and longtime director of China Inland Mission, the ministry founded by the missionary pioneer H...