Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalms 56,57,58; Leviticus 16:1-19; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 6:1-6,16-18
This morning’s Canticles are: Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); 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)
Deaths from the coronavirus are approaching 300,000 worldwide. Each death has happened to a unique, irreplaceable bearer of God’s image. Each death leaves a trail of grief. The number of lives lost has not peaked. We are left with the need to have a care, and with the prospect of further grief. With death hanging in the air about us, it’s heartening to see Scripture face it head on.
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. — 1 Thessalonians 4:13. By the time Paul writes to the Thessalonians, it’s the A.D. 50s. Two decades have passed since Jesus’s resurrection, ascension, and promise to return. Loved ones have died. People are wondering about what has happened to their dead spouses, children, parents, friends. And people are wondering about whether, in fact, the Lord will return.
Paul writes this paragraph to assure believers of five things:
First, the very same Jesus who lived on earth, died, rose, and ascended to heaven will indeed return to this earth. In the next paragraph (tomorrow’s reading) and in 2 Thessalonians, Paul will say more about the when and the how—more about that from me when we get to 2 Thessalonians.
Second, those who have died will not be at any disadvantage when Christ returns. In fact, they will have the privilege of being gathered first: “The dead in Christ will rise first.” There’s a mystery here. The point is, the Bible offers this comfort: there is both an ongoing present for those who have died in Christ, as well as a genuine future. In another letter, Paul opens the window the tiniest bit on to what’s going on now with his followers who have died. As he contemplates the prospect of his own death, the apostle says: “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord,” and that that would be “far better” (Philippians 1:23). Elsewhere, the New Testament opens the window just a little wider, indicating that those who have died in Christ make up a heavenly “cloud of witnesses” cheering us on in our race, even as they cry out to the Lord on behalf of the church down here, “How long, O Lord?” (Hebrews 12:1; Revelation 6:10).
Third, those who, at the time of Christ’s return, are still living on the earth (“who are left”) will go second. They will be “caught up” (commonly referred to as “the rapture” — 1 Thessalonians 4:17).
Fourth, at that time all of us—those who will have already died, and those “who are left” and who will have been “caught up”—together will form Christ’s triumphant company in his final, glorious victory over death. (Paul offers more perspective on that conquest in 1 Corinthians 15; as does John in Revelation 19-20.)
Fifth, Paul would have us encourage one another with these words. Our grief over the loss of loved ones in Christ is real. We miss them acutely, and achingly wish they were still with us. But our grief is filled with hope. We know that those whom Christ has taken to himself are truly in a “far better” place. What is more, we know that the day is coming when, reunited with them, we will witness Christ deliver the final death blow to death itself.
Until then, especially when the memory of those you’ve lost is sharp and presses in upon you, I pray you find further comfort in this collect from the BCP (pp. 255, 395):
Almighty God, by your Holy Spirit you have made us one with your saints in heaven and on earth: Grant that in our earthly pilgrimage we may always be supported by this fellowship of love and prayer, and know ourselves to be surrounded by their witness to your power and mercy. We ask this for the sake of Jesus Christ, in whom all our intercessions are acceptable through the Spirit, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.
Be blessed this day.
Reggie Kidd+
Sunday Worship
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; Acts 7:55-60; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
Today’s Devotion is dedicated to this Sunday’s lectionary readings. For some time, I’ve been mulling over what Jesus means when he refers to himself as “The Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
There is one way home.
When Jesus describes himself as the “Way,” he presupposes that life is a journey with a goal. In this very passage Jesus reflects on that goal: “in my Father’s house, there are many mansions…I go to prepare a place for you.” Think of the many images we’ve been seeing lately in the exodus story. There’s a mountain where Moses and the elders see God and feast (Exodus 24). There’s a vision of God where Moses becomes transformed into glory (Exodus 34), in anticipation of things to come for us (2 Corinthians 3:18; 4:16; Romans 8:18). And, of course, there’s the final end of this journey, when the people (well, the next generation) will go into the Promised Land.
Similarly, we’re not just wandering around down here on Planet Earth. Each of us is heading, as C. S. Lewis puts it, to one destination or the other, the “Beatific Vision” or the “Miserific Vision.” In the Beatific Vision we will be transformed into “everlasting splendors.” In the Miserific Vision we become “immortal horrors.” If we could see ourselves now as we are going to be, says Lewis, we would be tempted to fall down in worship or to flee in horror.
Jesus says that the Beatific Vision is a promise that is actually and truly open to us. He offers his hand to get us there. And he insists that his hand is the only way in. As early church leader Gregory of Nyssa says: “He who said, ‘I am the Way’ … shapes us anew into his own image”—which image, says Augustine of Hippo, is in “the quality of beauty.” Choose me, says Jesus. Choose beauty. Choose home.
There is one true story.
Our world right now is a baffling confusion of competing narratives, of charges and counter-charges of “fake news,” of who are the “good guys” and who are the “bad guys, of who are the truth-tellers and who are the liars. If you are going to maintain any sanity at all, you have to find a point of reference. You have to find the one true story. When Jesus says “I am the Truth,” he means that you will find your way through the fog only in him.
The Pilgrim’s Regress, by C. S. Lewis, is a story—a parable, really—about a person in quest of the one true story. Lewis’s pilgrim can’t get out of his mind the notion of an island of delight. He sets out in quest of it. The pilgrim travels “north” through the barren climes of rationalism, and then “south” through the wanton climes of romanticism. One false path says: “If you can gain enough knowledge, read enough books, make yourself smart enough, you can get there.” Another false path says: “If you can gain enough experiences: take enough cruises, drink enough bourbon, ingest enough drugs, spend enough money, bed enough partners, play enough notes, you can get there.”
What the pilgrim finally realizes is that he must allow “Mother Kirk” to carry him for a deep dive into cleansing, baptizing waters, and across the ocean that separates the mainland from the island he seeks. Mother Kirk knows the story, and you have to learn it from her.
I’m a pilgrim too, on my way to the island. That’s why I have to start the day going to that true story first. The news feed must wait until the Daily Office reconnects me to that one story that Mother Kirk tells, and that is written in Scriptures that have Jesus Christ at their center.
There is one good life.
It’s one thing to stay focused on the journey to the Father’s house and to dwell on, and in, the truth that keeps you above the fray of all the false stories. But in the end, you have to live your life down here in the trenches—and Jesus says he’s here for you too. Right here in the nitty-gritty, he insists, “I am the Life.”
In the “Heroes” episode of the television series M*A*S*H, my favorite character, the show’s chaplain, Father Francis Mulcahy, comes into his own. Father Mulcahy sits at the deathbed of one of his life-heroes, a retired boxer named “Gentleman” Joe Cavanaugh. Francis explains to the dying boxer what it had been like to grow up as a scrawny inner-city kid with thick glasses who liked to read otherworldly philosophy. He loved Plato’s vision of an “ideal plane” which helped him imagine a better life: “rambling fields and trees. Sort of like the suburbs, only in the sky.”
He explains that his big problem as a kid was that neighborhood bullies picked on him, and he couldn’t figure out how to respond. Then his father took him to see Gentleman Joe in a boxing match. Something magic happened that night: Gentleman Joe was punching his opponent at will, and the crowd was yelling, “Put him away!” Joe stopped and told the referee to stop the fight. The man had been hurt enough. Young Francis realized right then that “it was possible to keep one foot in the ideal world and the other foot in the real world. I thought you might like to know that,” he tells the dying Joe Cavanaugh, “And I just wanted to thank you.”
And so, even as he trained for the priesthood, Patrick Mulcahy took up boxing. Think of it this way: Father Mulcahy found a way to deal with “Life” without losing touch with the world of the “Way and the Truth.” That one foot in the real world lent power to his ministry: from rescuing orphans, to performing an orderly’s duties when the rest of the camp was sick, even to performing an emergency tracheotomy while under fire.
Just moments before Jesus talked to his disciples in John 14 about being the “Way” to the Father and about being the “Truth” in the face of falsity, he had shown what the “Life” looks like. In John 13, he had washed his disciples’ feet and had told them that this is what they are supposed to do for one another. Our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, is fond of urging us to “Say Yes! to Jesus!”, and in doing so, to say Yes! to love.
Wherever the nitty-gritty of life has you right now, I pray you know the presence of Jesus in it. Whether you are lonely or claustrophobic, I pray you find him giving you the resources to live and love. Whether you are exhausted or bored, may you find him as rest and creative energy.
I pray that you have the humility to take his hand as he leads the Way home.
I pray that you have the insight to take his story as your one True story.
I pray that you have the courage to make his Life of love your life.
Be blessed this day.
Reggie Kidd+
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 50; Exodus 34:1-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:13-20; Matthew 5:21-26
This morning’s Canticles are: Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); 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)
My experience with the Daily Office is that on some days, one of the passages will invite a “deep dive.” Other days, a single thought or verse may emerge. Some days—like today—I’ll read all the passages over and over again, finding myself pondering themes interwoven among them. So, today I’ve simply gathered common threads from across our readings under three heads.
God’s Word will stand. Moses may have broken the tablets of the “Ten Words.” But the “Ten Words” don’t thereby stop being the measure of image-bearing. God intends to make himself known to the world through a people of his possession. And so, the Lord replaces the tablets (Exodus 34:1-4).
The psalmist rebukes those who “toss” the Lord’s “words behind” their “back,” recasting God in their own image (“you thought that I am like you”). Making themselves the measure of all things, they justify stealth, adultery, lying (Psalm 50:17-20). Rejecting God’s Word, they turn life on its head.
To pagan Thessalonians, Paul offers Jesus Christ as the path to the knowledge of the “living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9). When they came to believe his message, he says, “you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).
Jesus expounds what God’s Word does when it works in the hearts of those who read it in faith. “You shall not murder,” says Scripture. When that word from God genuinely takes hold in a person, it restrains not just the hand, but the heart (Matthew 5:22).
You know, puzzles emerge in reading the Bible. The Bible is filled with flawed people. Sometimes you are left wondering why God does what he does, or why he permits what he permits. Still, throughout, it’s God’s living and active Word, which searches out our hearts, displays his character, and takes us deeper into communion with him.
God’s justice will stand resolutely.The psalmist maintains that people’s attempt to make the Lord over into an image of themselves (“you thought I am like you”) will prove false. “Our God,” maintains the psalmist, “will come and not keep silence” (Psalm 50:3). The Lord will “rend you and there be none to deliver you” (Psalm 50:23).
Moses warns that the cost of breaking covenant with Yahweh will be severe. If they marry idolators, Israelites will become idolators—they will prostitute themselves to their unbelieving spouses’ gods (Exodus 34:16).
For his part, Jesus refuses to endorse worship on just anybody’s terms—you can’t love God without loving neighbor. So, don’t even think about bringing your offering without first taking care of things when your brother or sister “has something against you” (Matthew 5:23).
To Paul, his fellow Jews’ fundamental mission in the world was to bring its Savior to them. Failing to recognize the Messiah, they killed him instead. As a result, “they displease God and oppose everyone,” putting themselves, alas, in the crosshairs of God’s wrath (1 Thessalonians 2:15-16).
It’s all quite sobering. God is not to be trifled with. Every once in a while, I need to take stock and examine my own assumptions about who he is, lest I re-fashion him into a cuddly chaplain of my own me-created, me-centered religion.
God’s mercy will stand even more resolutely than his justice. Judgment may extend to the fourth generation, but the Lord’s “steadfast love and faithfulness” will extend to the thousandth, he tells Moses (Exodus 34:5-7).
The psalmist holds out the promise: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall honor me” (Psalm 50:15).
Our Savior Jesus came, calling us to be reconciled with those from whom we are estranged (Matthew 5:24). Not only that, he has come on a mission to reconcile heaven and earth on the cross, ending the warfare between God and ourselves: “for he himself is our peace” (for this, see Romans 5:5-8; Colossians 2:21-22; Ephesians 2:14a).
Sad though the apostle Paul is about people who reject God’s peace in Christ, it is even more the case that he is grateful for those who embrace it: “For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at this coming? Is it not you? Yes, you are our glory and joy!” (1 Thessalonians 219-20). So, as James 2:13 says, “mercy triumphs over judgment.”
I leave today’s readings resolved to do three things. First, I determine to trust God’s Word asGod’s Word even in the places it seems unclear, demanding, or even puzzling. Then, second, I determine to hold onto the complete rightness of God’s judgment against all that stands against him. And third, I determine to hold onto the steadfast love that broke through on the Cross of his dear Son, where God showed himself to be both “just and (mercifully) justifier” (see Romans 3:26). Praise be!
Be blessed this day.
Reggie Kidd+
Cathedral Update
To CCSL Family, May 6, 2020
Beloved, in Christ,
Mercifully, COVID-19 has thus far not hit central Florida exceptionally hard. As a result, some enterprises are re-opening, if cautiously. You may be wondering whether and when the Cathedral Church of St. Luke will return to in-person worship.
For churches in our diocese, in-person worship is still suspended at least through Memorial Day. On March 22 we began offering online worship services, consisting of the Ministry of the Word. Your response has been enthusiastic, and we are thrilled that, by this means, we have been able to stay connected, and to include people who have never been able to worship with us.
It has been a joy to provide worship to a wider “congregation.” Worshipers who have joined us range from former Cathedralites, to out of town family members, to out-of-town friends of the Cathedral, to overseas Cathedral missionaries, and to others who have simply found us and who hunger for what we offer.
We also know that even after we resume in-person worship, some people will be reluctant, or unable, to return immediately. For all the above reasons, we plan to continue offering online worship even after we return to in-person worship.
As to when and how we resume in-person worship, no decision has yet been made. By mid-May we expect to receive more guidance from state and local leaders, the diocese, and the CDC. At that time, we hope to be able to communicate with you the next steps. Meanwhile, the Chapter, the staff, and I are actively evaluating our options—and we have no lack of ideas under consideration.
Finally, let me emphasize that our primary objective is for you to experience God’s presence through our worship. To that end, we are committed to providing all the spiritual nourishment we know how, while safeguarding the well-being of each person.
I pray Christ’s richest blessing on you this Eastertide.
Reggie Kidd+
Dean of the Cathedral
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:49-72; Exodus 33:1-23; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12; Matthew 5:17-20
This morning’s Canticles are: Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); 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)
Friendship with God. Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. — Exodus 33:11. Hebrew people defined friendship in terms of “speaking face to face.” It was about love. Remarkably, the Bible holds out the extraordinary prospect of the Lord of heaven and earth being “friend” to us, “speaking face to face” to us.
That said, Scripture rarely mentions friendship between God and humans. The only person in the Bible who is directly called “friend of God” is Abraham (see James 2:23). In Genesis 18, Abraham had been brazen enough to bargain with God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of ten innocent souls. God had been willing to listen to his friend’s urgings. The Lord was even willing to find the humor in ninety-year-old Sarah’s amusement at being told she would bear a child. Similarly, Abraham listened when, in Genesis 22, his Divine Friend asked him to make an unthinkable sacrifice: his own son. Loving attentiveness is at the heart of friendship.
Other than the Lord relating to Moses “as one speaks to a friend,” the Bible reserves the thought of friendship with God for the night Jesus, the God-Man, washes his disciples’ feet and says he’s no longer going to deal with them as servants, but as “friends.” He calls them friends, he explains, “because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father” (John 15:15).
Two features of Moses’s friendship with God are worth noting.
Friendship with God means expecting him to be forbearing with us. Aspects of Moses’s conversation with the Lord aren’t exactly lucid, but the Lord seems patient with Moses. To take but one example from a tangled conversation, right after the Lord promises that his presence will accompany the Israelites on their journey, Moses responds “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here” (Exodus 33:17). Instead of rebuking Moses for doubting his promise, the Lord assures him he will keep his word and adds “for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name” (Exodus 33:17).
If you are a friend of God—and if you are in Christ, you are indeed a friend of God—you can tell him what’s on your heart. You can speak to him “face to face.” He won’t mock. He won’t ignore. However, then … you should be ready to listen.
Friendship with God means taking the time & making the space to meet with him. My thirty-something son tells me his schedule is so crazy that he must deliberately set up time to meet and simply “hang out” with friends. Even if it’s only for coffee or a quiet lunch, he explains, the time is necessary for nurturing and maintaining those relationships. It’s the same with us when it comes to God.
Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp; he called it the tent of meeting. — Exodus 33:7. If you are reading this, I may very well be preaching to the choir. By praying and reading through the Daily Office, perhaps in a space you have carved out specifically for that purpose, you are doing the very thing you need to do to build your friendship with God. Nonetheless, I will go on to point out that Moses cultivated his friendship with God with intentionality. He had a place and he had a time. He would take the time to go to the “tent” where he would expect to “meet” the Lord.
At midnight I will rise to give you thanks, because of your righteous judgments. — Psalm 119:62. Every Wednesday, the Daily Lectionary calls for the reading of a portion of Psalm 119, so that we get all the way through this, the longest of the psalms, over the course of the seven weeks it takes to cover the whole of the Psalter. Psalm 119 is usually thought of as a psalm in praise of God’s Word. It is—but it is also a psalm in praise of prayer. It talks about praying at all times: “at midnight” (v. 62, from today’s portion!), “early in the morning” (v. 147), “in the night watches” (v. 148), “seven times a day” (v. 167).
The “at midnight” prayer mentioned in today’s reading is especially helpful. Midnight is when you wake up thinking about everything that worries you—the child you’re concerned about, the task you don’t see how you are going to finish, even the exhaustion that tonight’s anxiety will give you tomorrow. And what is so especially helpful is that today’s verse about prayer is an exhortation to give thanks. It’s amazing what happens when you translate your anxious broodings into petitions for help. It’s even more amazing what happens inside you when you have prefaced your requests with thanks. You become attuned to the ways you have already seen the Lord work, and you become fortified with the hopeful expectation that his righteous judgments will work their way into each and every situation.
And so the apostle Paul encourages God’s friends: “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).
Be blessed this day.
Reggie Kidd+