Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 102; Numbers 20:1-13; Romans 5:12-21; Matthew 20:29-34

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)

A Flawed Mediator. Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them. — Numbers 20:12. As sympathetic a figure as Moses is—humblest on the earth, ever interceding for a rebellious people, and friend of Yahweh—he shows himself to be as powerless against sin as the rest of us. 

The Lord has simply told Moses to command the rock (and not, by the way, to scold the people) so that the water will flow for the people and their livestock. But Moses works himself up into a fury against the thirsty people. Not content obediently to command the rock, he oversteps and strikes the rock with the staff of God’s authority, and that not once, but twice. In Yahweh’s estimation, this lack of trust places Moses in solidarity with the rest of his generation that had tested Yahweh—those who identified with Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10), the gluttons from the first plague (Numbers 11), the ten cowardly spies (Numbers 14), and most recently Korah and company, and the 14,700 who died in the second plague (Numbers 16). Moses will be the last of his generation to perish without entering the Promised Land—though, friend of God that he is, not without a glimpse of it. 

It’s a scene with a lot of pathos. It’s a sober reminder to all of us to be vigilant, as the hymn says, to “trust and obey.”

Paradise Regained. As a whole, the Old Testament unfolds as a saga of expulsion from the Garden—of exile from Paradise, a life in perfect communion with God—and of God’s preparing a way for humankind to return. Israel is entrusted with the oracles of God. Her mission is to bear the promise of return, and at the same time, the burden of its cost. We’ve just seen that Moses—the law-giver and one who spoke face to face with Yahweh himself—is susceptible to the curse of disobedience that is common to all humankind. 

Carrying forward the storyline of that saga, the epistle to the Romans is animated by an incredible sense of peace, hope, and confidence (for instance, in Romans 5:1-11—yesterday’s reading). The way “back in” has opened up. In today’s reading—some of the densest and most pregnant sentences he is ever to compose—Paul explains the source of such peace, hope and confidence. In Jesus Christ, Israel has ushered onto the stage of world history—and into our personal lives—the One who undoes the tragedy of the Garden. 

In brief, here are the points Paul makes in this brilliant paragraph: 

1. The “fall”—along with death that accompanied it—was a natural and just consequence of Adam’s disobedience; but the free gift of eternal life is an extraordinary, countervailing manifestation of “God’s grace” and his “gracious gift in Christ” (v. 15). 

2. It might have been easy for God to intervene to fix things immediately after the fall, but he did it only “after many transgressions” (i.e., after the situation had become arguably unfixable — v. 16). The fall set in motion a sorrowful domino-like series of tragedies (think Shakespeare), that would magnify the loving and merciful character of God in a way that something resolvable by a quick fix would not. Human self-help couldn’t reverse the cumulative effects of “many transgressions.” But God could. And he did. 

3. In sum: One man, Christ, offers “righteous conduct” (dikaioma)—i.e., the obedience of his whole life and of his mounting the cross of Calvary—that leads to the “rightwise-ing/justifying/making right” (dikaiosis) of all. One man, Christ, offers the perfect obedience that undoes the first man’s disobedience. 

4. Thus, while in the present, “sin reigns” because Adam forfeited his/our right to rule, when all is said and done “those who receive…the gift of righteousness will reign” (v. 17) and “grace also will reign” (v. 21). 

5. Result: the entrance of sin into human experience will prove to have brought about God’s greater grace (vv. 20-21). The line from the original “Exsultet” comes to mind: “O truly needful sin of Adam which was blotted out by the death of Christ! O happy fault (felix culpa) which merited so great a Redeemer!” 

I pray that our lives may be as animated as are Paul’s words with the sense of peace, hope, and confidence that comes from knowing that, in Christ, grace has taken the field on our behalf. And I pray we all may grip firmly onto the deep understanding that that grace is greater than all the evil, all the confusion, all the sickness we see around—and in—ourselves. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Noonday Prayer

Thanks for joining us for Noonday Prayer! Deacon Rose Sapp-Bax is leading today. You can follow along on page 103 in the Book of Common Prayer or online at w...

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105:1-22; Numbers 17:1-11; Romans 5:1-11; Matthew 20:17-28

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)

Signature insights from Numbers, Romans, and Matthew wondrously converge in today’s readings. 

Life from a Tree. When Moses went into the tent of the covenant on the next day, the staff of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted. It put forth buds, produced blossoms, and bore ripe almonds. — Numbers 20:8. Life emerges from a dead tree, proof of God’s choice of Aaron’s priesthood. This is one of the amazing portraits of the coming Mediator in the book of Numbers. Millennia later God will prove his choice of Jesus’s priesthood in similar fashion, by raising him to life after death on Calvary’s tree. The writer to the Hebrews reminds us that Aaron was priest solely by God’s choice (Hebrews 5:8), and that Jesus too is priest solely by God’s choice. Further, Hebrews points up the way the almond-graced rod was preserved in the ark as a permanent reminder of Aaron’s priesthood (Hebrews 9:3), and then portrays Jesus’s ongoing ministry as “high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:20, and following). While Aaron’s mortality meant that he had to be followed by many priests of his lineage, Jesus’s resurrection means he ministers forever: proclaiming the Father’s name, singing in the midst of the congregation, ever living to intercede, and bringing bread and wine from God’s holy altar (Hebrews 2:12; 7:25; 13:10). Although his work on the cross for us has been completed, Jesus does not cease his work in our lives. Even now. His ongoing ministry means he is praying for his church, praying for each of us. Praise be. 

Paul’s John 3:16. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. — Romans 5:8. If there is one truth in Paul’s letters that is worth burning into our brains, it’s this one. The life-giving tree on which Christ hung is all the proof any of us needs that God does not hate us, but instead loves us. God gave his Son up to death that we may escape the wrath we deserve (Romans 5:9), and so that we may boast that on the day of the great reckoning we will have a share in the glory of God (Romans 5:3,10-11). That word, “boast,” gives some of us a little trouble. It is often too closely linked with “bluster” and “brag”—so, not in a good way.  Paul doesn’t intend us to think of boasting as an excessive, vain, self-centered behavior. Rather, it’s a bit more like being proud of, and proclaiming the praises of, say, the Gators or the Seminoles (or Army vs. Navy if you are Peter Tepper). Paul thinks it is perfectly acceptable to “boast” about God and his mercy and kindness towards us. “He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31). 

Not only that, Paul says, but when trials come, we can see in every challenge the promise of Spirit-worked character: “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5, RSV). It’s almost too much to take in. It is almost too much to remember. So, because it is so wonderfully—and gloriously—and truly—true, even our “boasting” becomes a way to remind ourselves of the worth of God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. Praise be. 

The Great “So What?” …and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. — Matthew 20:27. And just so, we can let go of the need to make ourselves Number One. Jesus gives a comprehensive and sobering description of the ultimately world-changing things that are about to happen in Jerusalem: his arrest, condemnation, mocking, flogging, crucifixion, and—incomprehensibly—his rising from the dead. 

Of all the possible reactions to that news, Matthew records this response: an overly ambitious mother lobbying to put her ambitious sons (see Luke 9:46) in the positions of highest honor when the Kingdom comes. At one level, it’s staggering to imagine such naked, selfish ambition right after they have heard the unhappy details of the awful things that were about to be done to Jesus. And yet, at another level, isn’t there a lot of that instinct in every single one of us? 

Perhaps, knowing this about his disciples (and about us), perhaps this is why Jesus calls the disciples to him. To.Spell.It.Out: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.  It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant,  and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave;  just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Lord, have mercy. Give us grace this day to take our bearings from the Son of Man who “came not to be served but to serve.” 

Give us grace, we pray, to give thanks for the life that blossomed from the tree, and that continues to intercede for us.

Give us grace, we pray, to delight in the love you have shown us, Father, in the gift of your Son, and that you continue to pour into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). 

Give us grace, we pray, as simultaneously slaves of Christ and heirs of his kingdom, to attend not to our own needs this day, but to the needs of those around us. Amen.

Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+

Midday Eucharist

Join us as we as celebrate Holy Communion.

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalms 101 & 109; Numbers 16:36-50; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 20:1-16

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)

God “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” With these words Paul marvels at the fact that the gift of faith lifts Jews out of spiritual death and calls Gentiles out of spiritual nonexistence. 

Death, Spiritual and Otherwise. The spiritual death of which Paul speaks is vividly displayed in today’s Numbers passage—and so is the summons from death to life. Instead of recognizing Yahweh’s perfect and righteous judgement against the sin of Korah, “the whole congregation of the Israelites” blame the God’s punishment on Moses and Aaron. “You have killed the people of the Lord,” they claim. This rebellion of unbelief is nothing but the manifestation of an ultimately fatal underlying condition. Sin is a walking death - deserving of God’s wrath. God tells Moses, “Get away from this assembly so I can put an end to them at once.” When the glory cloud of Yahweh descends upon the people (who are already dead, spiritually) it has the effect of finishing the process. Thus, a plague breaks out. Over 14,000 people die, the physical death completing the end of their earthly existence. 

Grace Intervenes. But then—and herein lies the glory of the Bible: like a brilliant shaft of light in the dark, grace (unmerited favor), breaks into the story. Here’s where Israel’s narrative differs from the epics and the myths and the stories of ancient heroes, gods, and goddesses. Instead of letting dike or kharma or divine vengeance have its way, the Bible recounts a redeeming mediation. Interceding for the people at Yahweh’s anger, Moses and Aaron “fell on their faces.” Moses sends his brother Aaron the high priest with lit censer “into the middle of the assembly where the plague had already begun among the people.” There Aaron puts incense on the lit coals, and offers the smoke. Standing “between the dead and the living,” Aaron’s billowing smoke “made atonement for the people”—literally, “covered the people.” The sweet savor of the incense covered the stench of rebellion, of mistrust, of spiritual death. It brought the plague to a halt. The Bible is all about turning death into life, foul stench into fragrant aroma, enmity into amity. And the Bible proclaims this truth: believe Yahweh unto life, renounce rebellion unto death. 

Christ as Fragrant Offering. In precisely these terms Paul calls his readers to believe “him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.” Or, as he says in a later epistle, “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). Under the Old Covenant, smoke of incense and of whole burnt offering rose upward in Israel’s sacrifices to cover—and thus, temporarily to atone for—the offensive stench and rottenness of sin. In the New Covenant, our Great High Priest places himself, first, in the midst of the congregation. Then, on the Cross, Christ our Mediator offers his own body and blood, bringing an end to the malodorous stench of sin-death and inaugurating the fragrance of life. 

Grace in Response. Without going into the details of today’s Gospel reading, Matthew records the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard to remind Jewish Christians (those who have labored all day in the vineyard) not to be envious when Gentile Christians (those who have only labored for the last hour the day) receive the same wage, a metaphor for the promise of life in the Kingdom of Heaven. In Paul’s terms, there is the grace of being raised from the dead (Jews becoming alive to their true inheritance through the coming of Christ as Messiah) and there is the grace of being called from non-being to being (Gentiles being brought from totally outside the sphere of God’s redemptive work). This parable is Matthew’s version of Luke’s Parable of the Prodigal Son. It’s a reminder to us not to envy grace given to others, but to be grateful for the grace that’s been lavished on us. Praise be to the God whose grace raises the dead and brings into being that which was not—and robs either side of any boast save one, “Let those who boast, boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:31). 

Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+

Noonday Prayer

Thanks for joining us for Midday Eucharist! The Rev. Josh Bales is leading today. In union, O Lord, with the faithful at every altar of your church where the...

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalms 97, 99, 100; Numbers 16:20-35; Romans 4:1-12; Matthew 19:23-30

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)

Although today’s readings present a range of situations, they unite in pressing one issue: trust. Trust is the question throughout this week’s readings. In fact, believing God is the most pressing of issues throughout the Bible.

Romans. “Abraham believed God,” says Paul, in Romans 4:3, quoting Genesis 15:6. On its face, that seems to be an utterly simple statement. Yet it is profoundly complex. In the eyes of Paul the apostle, God’s promise of a numberless “seed” and a vast nation—the promise Abraham is credited with having believed all the way back in Genesis—turns out to be anything but simple. Millennia after the fact, Paul realizes that the promise that Abraham believed included a specific “Seed”—Jesus Christ—whose life, death, and resurrection have now brought forgiveness of sins for the whole world. Not only that, but Jesus brings the beginning of the undoing of the treasonous and ruinous unbelief of the Garden. Abraham’s simple decision to trust God has worked incalculable good. And Paul urges us toward a faith like that of Abraham, “the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised” (Romans 4:11-12). In other words, Abraham is the ancestor of all who trust God, whether Gentile or Jew. 

Numbers. Korah and company’s fantasies about Egypt seem plausible to a congregation wearied of the wilderness’s hardships. Trusting God is something they just cannot do. At Korah’s challenge to their authority, Moses and Aaron beg Yahweh to limit punishment to the instigators of this rebellion of unbelief. So the congregation as a whole must choose whether to stand with the rebels and perish, or trust their appointed leaders, Moses and Aaron, and live. In today’s passage, they make a good choice. The people stand with Moses and Aaron. In tomorrow’s passage, they will revert to mistrust, accusing Moses and Aaron, “You have killed the people of the Lord.” 

In their turn, Moses and Aaron trust that their vindication lies not in power politics and clever maneuvering against their attackers, but in simply submitting to Yahweh’s power to sort the evil from the good. 

Matthew. For rich people, according to Jesus, the question is whether to trust the gifts or the Giver. Reflecting this very teaching, Paul will later urge Timothy to warn rich Christians not “to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life” (1 Timothy 6:17-18). 

May you, like Abraham, trust God’s promise for peace with him now and a sure future to come through Jesus Christ.

May you, like Moses and Aaron, trust God even when you are weary from hardships or difficulties that discourage you. 

May you, at Jesus’s invitation, trust in the wealth that comes from knowing him. 

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 on page 103 in the Book of Common Prayer or online at www....

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89:1-18; Numbers 16:1-19; Romans 3:21-31; Matthew 19:13-22

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)

Throughout the book of Numbers, Moses prepares the 2nd generation to cross over into the Promised Land. The Daily Office has us in the middle portion of the book, a section that recounts a series of rebellions. These rebellions illustrate different aspects of the sinfulness of the human heart. This middle section also offers a series of images of images of mediation, as Moses stands between the people and the consequences of their faithlessness.

Breathtaking presumption. Korah’s and his followers’ claim that “all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them” is partially correct, but mostly wrong. They are correct in that the Lord had indeed said that Israel would be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). They are correct in that the Lord dwells “in their midst” (Numbers 5:3). 

But Korah and company are more wrong than they are correct, because they fail to take into account how the congregation becomes holy. A sinful people are inherently unholy. In the first place, that means they must be shielded from the presence of the Holy One—thus, the permission for Moses alone to ascend the holy mountain back in Exodus 24. In the second place, that means their holiness must be established through God-ordained sacrifices (for instance, the Day of Atonement sacrifices in Leviticus 16, symbolizing purification for sin) and then maintained through God-instructed living (“You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy,” Leviticus 19:6). 

Breathtaking stupidity. Further, Korah and his followers are profoundly wrong to claim that Moses and Aaron “exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord” and “lord it over us” (Numbers 16:3, 13). At age 40, Moses had indeed taken it upon himself to deliver his people, when he killed the Egyptian—and had failed miserably (Exodus 2:11-14; Acts 7:23-29). For the next 40 years, he had tended his father-in-law’s sheep in obscurity. At 80 years of age the Lord had appeared to him in a burning bush and, over Moses’s protestations, had called him to this task (Exodus 3 & 4; Acts 7:30-36). Aaron was pressed into service because of Moses’s claim to inelegance of speech: “I am slow of speech and slow of tongue” (Exodus 4:10). And Numbers has already stated, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). Moses doesn’t have a “dog in this fight,” nor any “turf to defend.” He’s willing to let the Lord show how He wants to order leadership among the Israelites. Not to mention, Korah and his family—of the tribe of Levi—had already been set apart in service to Yahweh and his people! What??

Breathtaking remedy. Numbers is part of a whole history that proves, according to Paul in Romans 2–3:20), that Israel is just as sinful as the rest of the human race (Romans 1). Paul draws the lessons from Israel’s history (Romans 2–3:and adds it to his indictment of the rest of the human race (Romans 1). Paul’s summation is that, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…”. And that summation leads to perhaps the profoundest words he is ever to pen: “…they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:-26). 

The tangled history of Israel has led to this singular Son, Jesus Christ, whose atoning sacrifice the heavenly Father would set forth to cover all the Korahs and all our rebellions. Here is God’s gift of unspeakable grace, in fulfillment of his promise to make right all that went wrong in the Garden, all that went wrong in the wilderness, and all that has gone wrong in the myriad of ways we continue to prove that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory.” Through Christ, the God who keeps faith becomes “just and justifier.” All that is required is that his faithfulness be met with our own faith. As Romans 1:17 has already put it: “from (understood, his) faith to (understood, our) faith.” 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Midday Eucharist

Join us for Midday Eucharist at the Cathedral Church of St Luke in Orlando

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