Sunday Worship
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
PLEASE NOTE: I’ll be teaching at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies (online, of course, but still teaching), so Daily Devotions with the Dean will take a break until June 22.
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalms 40 & 54; Ecclesiastes 5:1-7; Galatians 3:15-22; Matthew 14:22-36
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)
Sometimes the Lord takes the props away. For our Cathedral family of late, it’s been the beautiful building, the physical bread and wine, the hugs at the peace, the voices blended in praise. Sometimes other things get removed from people—a secure income, good health, close friends, a fulfilling job, a feeling of God’s presence. Your mother – or father – or spouse – or child dies. Your dog (or cat) dies. It’s awful. Sometimes all the supports disappear, and it’s just you — and the emptiness, the “vanity.” Or — it’s you — and God.
Whatever has been the process, the Lord, in his kindness, has brought Solomon to such a place. Over the course of this week’s readings in Ecclesiastes, we have observed Solomon’s increasingly unhappy depictions of the limited satisfactions of pleasure and power, of ambition and wisdom — of life itself. He’s come to the end of himself. And he realizes it’s either him and the void (“Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.”). Or it’s him and God.
Wisely, he chooses God. But even here (Ecclesiastes being a book all about dead ends) a narrow window opens to him showing how even the choice of “religion” can be a dead end. There’s a way to try to relate to God that is itself vanity.
A listening faith. “…to draw near to listen is better than the sacrifice offered by fools…nor let your heart be quick to utter a word before God…It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not fulfill it.” — Ecclesiastes 5:1,2,5. There is an approach to God himself that is a “sacrifice offered by fools.” Effusive religious enthusiasm and over-promising devotion to God lead to one more dead end.
Paul amplifies the point. The zealot-turned-apostle explains that the giving of the law of Moses was designed from the beginning to make Israel attentive—to listen to the retelling of God’s promise. The law never overrode that promise. The law illuminated our tendency to be lured by sin, to lean into sin — to love sin. The law was intended to lead us to listen for the “why” of the ongoing provision for sacrifice to cover sin. To listen, and hear anew, the promise that God had already made to Abraham of an offspring who would eventually mediate the broken relationship between God and us: “… so that what was promised through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe” (Galatians 3:22).
Jesus proves the point. Today’s passage in Matthew shows Jesus, who is Emmanuel (God-with-us) walking on water. One of his more spectacular gifts, right? What is worthy of note is the prelude: “…he went up to the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone… And early in the morning he came walking down…” (Matthew 14:23,25). In other words, he has been up there all night with his Father. Do we imagine the prayers of Jesus that night were one-sided? That Jesus did all the talking, all night long? The One who taught,“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:7-8). The book of Hebrews states that “in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission” (Hebrews 5:7-8). It’s not hard to believe that over the course of his night of prayer, there was a good measure of listening to the Father and communing deeply with him. With all his superpowers (to apply a modern anachronism), Jesus presents himself among us to show us how to avoid the religiosity that is, in reality, just blather or bloviating vow-making. (A study of today’s Psalm, Psalm 40, reveals a form of honest prayer, displaying expressions of thanksgiving; distress; supplication; and praise.)
By the way, I’m pretty sure that some features of today’s passage in Matthew are unique to the moment it narrates. I have friends who are skeptical about whether Jesus ever literally walked on water. I’m not. But his walking on the water looks like a “one off” phenomenon designed to make a point. The point was: trust me. Peter’s temporarily-enabled walking on water looks like it provided the teaching moment: Keep your eyes on me, and you’ll be OK. Pay attention to the storm around you, and you’ll sink. The things that transpired physically outside the boat that night appear to be unique to those moments. Their significance for life — let the reader discern.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 50; Ecclesiastes 3:16–4:3; Galatians 3:1-14; Matthew 14:13-21
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)
Death & “life under the sun.” For Ecclesiastes, the most obvious dead end is death itself. In the face of death, according to the writer, the best that human observation can offer—the best that we who live “under the sun” can surmise—is: “Who knows whether the human spirit goes upwards and the spirit of animals goes downwards to the earth?” (Ecclesiastes 3:21). If animal existence is all there is, you cope in resignation, just going about your business oblivious to any larger question. And perhaps you raise a glass to the dead or the not-yet-born for not having to lay eyes on a world where the oppressors have power and the oppressed have only tears. Who knows, asks Ecclesiastes, if there’s any point at all to life “under the sun”?
“Who knows, indeed?,” responds the Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft, “Here under the sun, no one. Unless there should appear here under the sun a man who came from beyond the sun, beyond the horizon of death’s night—unless we saw the Rising Son. But Solomon had not yet seen that man….” (Three Philosophies of Life [Ignatius Press, 1989, p. 47).
The rest of the Bible, observes Kreeft, provides answers to questions that the book of Ecclesiastes raises: Who knows? What’s the point? Because the rest of the Bible has seen the Man who came from beyond the sun.
Matthew has seen the Man from beyond the sun. Thus, in our reading today Matthew describes the day the Man from beyond the sun multiplies loaves and fishes to feed people with physical hunger, prefiguring a sacred sustenance for souls. “Taking the five loaves and two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke loaves, and gave them…” (Matthew 14:19). Jesus uses the same actions here that he will use at the Last Supper. Matthew 26:26 recounts, “While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” Matthew wants us to know that these physical provisions are gifts in promise of spiritual nourishment for bearers of the eternal, divine image. We are not soul-less animals!
Paul, too, has seen the Man from beyond the sun—the Man who shook off the curse of death, who reversed death itself. That is why in yesterday’s reading in Galatians, Paul speaks of being crucified “with Christ.” He declares, “It is “no longer I who live…,” meaning, to paraphrase Ecclesiastes, “I no longer live ‘under the sun’,” (that is, with futility and without purpose). He continues, “…it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
And so, in today’s passage from Galatians, Paul rejoices because Jesus’s seemingly meaningless death—which was both like, and unlike, so many other seemingly meaningless deaths before and after his—becomes promise and hope and purpose. It is God’s blessing for Gentiles as well as for Jews (Galatians 4:3). Which is to say, it is for everybody who will believe—for all who refuse to let their horizons be defined by what is observable “under the sun,” and who say instead, “Yes!” to the Rising Son.
I pray you say “Yes!” to Jesus today.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:49-72; Ecclesiastes 3:1-15; Galatians 2:11-21; Matthew 14:1-12
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)
“To everything, there is a season…” — Ecclesiastes 3:1. How lovely it would be to be so perfectly attuned to the need of any moment that you instinctively know whether to plant or pluck, kill or heal, break or build, embrace or not, keep or throw away, be quiet or speak up, love or hate, make war or make peace. I don’t know anywhere in all literature in which this ideal is more elegantly expressed than in these verses.
“That which is has already been; that which is to be already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.” — Ecclesiastes 3:15. But in any given moment, how does anyone know exactly when, for instance, to be quiet or speak up? From 1 Kings, we think of Solomon as having precisely this sense. He asked the Lord for wisdom, and the Lord made him the wisest person on earth (1 Kings 4:29-34). To illustrate the point, we are given the story of the case of the two prostitutes, disputing over one dead baby and one live baby (1 Kings 3:16-38).
That’s all well and good. However, here in Ecclesiastes we are given the other side of the coin. What’s it like, asks Solomon in this book, when that gift doesn’t come? When prayers for wisdom seem to bounce off the sky? When the face of God cannot be discerned? When you just don’t know whether to plant or pluck, kill or heal? When you look for answers and all you get is: “That which is, already has been; that which is to be already is; and God seeks out what has gone by”? (Ecclesiastes 3:15). Huh?
The dead end that this chapter of Ecclesiastes explores is that of having the ethical ideal in principle, but lacking insight into God’s mind to know how to pull it off. Simon and Garfunkel have been there: “Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again….” We’ve all been there. Right now, we’re probably all there to some extent: return to public life, or stay hunkered down? Speak out and risk pouring gasoline on the fire, or be quiet and risk giving way to the haters?
“‘Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.’” — Matthew 14:8. Then there’s the beheading of John the Baptist. He knew his mission was to point the way to the coming of the Kingdom. The King—who happened to be his own cousin—had come, but as for the Kingdom? Unjustly and cruelly, John the Baptist is martyred before he gets to see Kingdom come.
It’s a long line of martyrs, isn’t it? This very week, in the course of remembrances in the liturgical calendar, these names come before us: Justin Martyr (June 1), Blandina & the Martyrs of Lyons (June 2), the Martyrs of Uganda (June 3). Add Jesus-loving George “Big Floyd” Floyd. And also this week, one of my doctoral students at the Robt. E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies, Emmanuel Bileya—one of the kindest, sweetest spirits God ever led into ministry—and his wife Juliana, martyred in Nigeria during a vicious ethnic war.
These deaths are mystifying and cruel—seemingly pointless. If the world worked the way it should, everything would get done in its own time. But in the world as it is, things happen out of season—dancing when there should be mourning, killing when there should be healing, war when there should be peace, throwing stones when there should be gathering. And all along, the face of God seems sphinxlike, his purposes hidden: “That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.”
If the horizon of Ecclesiastes were all there were, these words would be a counsel of despair—the Herods would win, the white cop (and his complicit partners) with a knee on the black man would win, the ethnic cleansers would win. But there is a broader horizon beyond the reach of Ecclesiastes’s Solomon—and there is no counsel of despair.
Something that George Floyd’s Houston pastor, Patrick PT Ngwolo, said was amazing: “After Cain’s superiority and animosity drove him to kill Abel, Scripture tells us, ‘The Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground’ (Gen. 4:10). If you fast-forward 2,000 years, there’s another innocent sufferer whose blood spoke of better things than Abel’s. … Jesus’ blood says he can redeem us through these dark and perilous times.”
One day, when the last drop of innocent blood has been shed, and the great reckoning takes place, we will find that not one has been wasted. “That” is the hidden thing “which is,” which “already has been; … and “which is to be.”
All that has been taken,
It shall be restored.
This eternal anthem
For the Glory of the Lord.
• Twila Paris
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Midday Eucharist
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 45; Ecclesiastes 2:16-26; Galatians 1:18–2:10; Matthew 13:53-58
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)
If death truly marks the end, and if death itself is a slide into nothingness, then everything before it is nothingness too—a kind of living death. Trying to live a life worth being remembered for? Pointless: “For there is no enduring remembrance of the wise or of fools, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten” (Ecclesiastes 2:16). Ambitious projects? (And Solomon’s were nothing if not ambitious, and lavish, from palaces to stables to, of course, God’s very house). It’ll all be left for people who didn’t toil for it. Again, pointless: “This also is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19).
Solomon’s perspective is one of a life turned in on itself, and it’s not pretty. But at the end of this paragraph, in verses 24-26, Solomon gets a glimmer of insight. If you see God as the giver of life, it’s possible to receive food and drink as a gift, and even to find enjoyment in the work he gives you to do. If the goal is to please him and not self or posterity, it’s just possible that “wisdom and knowledge and joy” will come.
I linger over one observation from Paul’s letter to the Galatians: that is, that it takes him a decade and a half from his conversion before he puts pen to paper.
Some things take time. It’s either seventeen years or fourteen years from Paul’s conversion and initial contact with the Jerusalem leaders of the church (scholars still debate the time frame) until he appears to them to lay out his understanding of his call. A lot of water has gone under the bridge: time in Arabia (whether in seclusion or under tutelage) and a decade of ministry in a church of mixed Jews and Gentiles in Syrian Antioch.
When he does emerge for this consultation, it’s clear that three things have jelled for him. We can be grateful for them—and that he took the time to get them right. First, it is God’s sheer grace in Christ that saves—which is largely the burden of this letter. Second, it is the shape of God’s plan to bring Jews and Gentiles together as equal citizens in the Kingdom of God (Galatians 3:28). Third, it is his mission to pursue the Gentile-inclusion part of God’s plan—so much so, that he will risk alienating key Jerusalem leadership (Galatians 2:3-5, and tomorrow’s passage). Fourth, he is so eager for his fellow Jews to understand God’s reconciling love and power that he plans to raise support among his Gentile churches to support the impoverished Jewish church in Jerusalem: “They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor (i.e., the church in Jerusalem—a story for another day), which was actually what I was eager to do” (Galatians 2:10).
Let me commend to you three ways to pray for God’s good timing—even if it may seem slow to us—to show itself for you and for our world.
In your own life, I pray you not feel like you are stuck in some sort of perpetual hovering pattern, just circling the airport, never landing. Go to him daily, ready to hear him say, “Wait on me,” or “Here we go!”
Pray for the lifting of the curse and for the dissipation of this coronavirus. Pray for wise leaders and wise citizens, for failed and failing businesses, for furloughed workers and exhausted workers, for going-out-of-their-minds moms. Pray for those in the medical profession, those who minister to the sick and suffering, those who keep the lights on, and those who seek a cure and a vaccine.
Pray for the healing of racial woundedness in our society. Pray for—and, friends, work towards—the day when people of color do not have to live with fear of police or of taunts from white people just for being alive. Pray that that day is not as far out into the future as 1619, when the first slave ship breasted the horizon of the coast of Virginia, is in our past. And don’t lose heart, even now.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+