Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 140 & 142; Numbers 24:1-13 [12-25]; Romans 8:12-17 [18-25]; Matthew 22:15-22
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)
Bye-bye, Balaam. In his 3rd & 4th oracles, Balaam sets aside his practices of divination, and the Spirit of God comes upon him. He offers his most straightforward blessing of Israel, and he is given a vision that “a star will rise from Jacob; a scepter will emerge from Israel” (Numbers 24:17), who will make Israel victorious over surrounding countries. And what a gift to the church this verse has been, serving as text for a piece in Felix Mendelssohn’s unfinished Christus oratorio.
At the end of his interviews with Balak of Moab, Balaam promises to go home to Syria. Nonetheless, it appears he stays, and eventually takes up residence among the Israelites. He returns to his divining practices. His presence over time subverts Israel’s faith, as he encourages sexual promiscuity and idolatrous worship. Eventually, the Israelites put him to death (Numbers 31:8). The New Testament remembers him not as prophet of Messiah, but as someone who loved to earn money by luring people into false worship and sexual misbehavior. Lord, have mercy.
Adoption: now and not yet.
… you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. — Romans 8:16.
… we ourselves, [having] the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. — Romans 8:23.
In the juxtaposition of these two verses lies all the tension of the Christian life: an intimate joy at knowing that we are children of God and an inward groaning while we wait to become children of God. Ours is an adoption that is “now” and that is also “not yet.” It’s a sense of being God’s child that begins as soon as Christ takes up residence within us by his Spirit. (By the way, if you feel unsure about whether Christ has come to dwell within you, get in touch with me, and we can talk.)
At the same time, the “not yet” side of adoption is the sober realization that until resurrection, we are not quite home yet. Our bodies are still frail and subject to decay, and we are still susceptible to sinning. But even this, Paul says, is a sense that we only have because the Spirit inside us is a foretaste of what it is to be free at last from the curse of sin and death. The Spirit within us enables us (as in Romans 7) to delight in God’s law and (as in the first part of Romans 8) to see the law being fulfilled in our humble attempts to follow the Spirit. And at the very same time, the Spirit provokes inner groaning—from deep, deep within our renewed selves—just because we feel the pain of not yet having been made perfect.
That day will come when Christ’s resurrection becomes our own—when what Paul calls “the outer man” (which is subject to decay in the now—see 2 Corinthians 4:16) and “the inner man” (which is already being made new “day by day”—again, see 2 Corinthians 4:16) are no longer headed in opposite directions, but will have finally been brought perfectly in sync in the newness of new creation.
Meanwhile, we rejoice, and we groan. That’s the normal Christian life. I submit it’s the only way we can find perspective for entering a weekend in which we celebrate the 4th of July’s promise of freedom (signed both in ink in Philadelphia on 7/4/1776 and in blood in Gettysburg on 7/1-3/1863), and in which we lament how far from the promise of freedom too many Americans still are in the summer of 2020.
We are not surprised when the world around us feels the same conflict that we find inside ourselves. That realization alone anchors us and energizes us as we both wait for and work towards the day when “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalms 131, 132, & 133; Numbers 23:11-26; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 22:1-14
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)
Balaam’s second oracle. In this second of four oracles that Balaam is to deliver to Balak king of Moab, the seer reiterates Yahweh’s message that, “The Lord their God is with them, acclaimed as a king among them” (Numbers 23:21), and that no matter what, “no enchantment, … no divination” will prevail against Israel (Numbers 23:23). It’s humbling to watch Balaam say truthful and faithful things when we know his heart is actually far off.
Surrounded as we are these days by voices that come from mixed motives and hidden agendas—talking heads on the right and on the left, politicians who put their fortunes above public health and societal well-being—it’s important to keep listening for the Lord’s voice. He is King, and eventually his purposes will prevail.
Romans 8 is Paul’s elegant and powerful response to his own question: “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” In Romans 8, he revels in the combined work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to accomplish just such a deliverance.
Father. In this first paragraph (verses 1-11), Paul says that what the law could not do, God (meaning the Father) does: he sends his Son. There’s no such thing as a bad Old Testament God and a good New Testament God. As Paul has already said, “God proves his love for us in that … Christ died.” The Father puts his only beloved Son to the service of taking away the sins of the world, so that, in the words of the Anglican Puritan theologian Richard Sibbes, “God the Father, the party offended by our sins, is…well pleased with the work of redemption.” The entire mission of rescue is a mission of the Father’s love.
Son. The mess that we could not get ourselves out of is the feeling—indeed, the knowing—that our sins merit utter condemnation from God. But now there is no condemnation, because the Son has come, says Paul, “in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin.” What a universe of meaning in those few words!
…in the likeness…of flesh — Jesus Christ is like us in all things, save sin. He assumed the totality of our humanness so that the totality of our humanness could be saved—from the top of our heads to the tips of our toes! As the early church fathers said, “What cannot be assumed cannot be saved.”
in the likeness of sinful flesh — God’s unfolding design ever since the Garden has been to gather up and to concentrate all the world’s sin into One Person—a Second Adam—who would stand in for all the rest of humankind, receiving in his own Person the full weight of the consequences of every sin ever committed. Note the “where” of Romans 5:20—“where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” That “where” was ultimately Calvary, where Isaiah 53’s Suffering Servant hung, “pierced for our transgressions … to justify the many” (Romans 4:25, and Isaiah 53:4-6, 11-12).
and for sin. This is a most intriguing phrase. In Leviticus 5:7-8; 6:25 (= 6:18 in the Greek), it’s the offering for the little sins: the guilt offering. The big sins are handled by the propitiation of the Day of Atonement (to which Paul has already referred in Romans 3:25-26). Here in Romans 8, Paul wants us to know God has also taken care of the tiny sins too—the unconscious, unintentional, not-exactly-what-I-intended sins. Those are the kind of sins that provoke the inner anxiety of Romans 7:14-25. It’s amazing—and comforting—that these are the sins that Paul would focus on here. His point is that Christ’s sacrifice is so exhaustive that it takes care of the subtlest and smallest as well as the most obvious and biggest-ticket sins. It takes care of the ones we can easily walk away from and forget (until maybe the middle of the night!) and the ones that will accuse our consciences day and night, all the days of our lives. No matter how trifling, no matter how enormous, Christ has handled them.
Holy Spirit. The Father loves us, and therefore sends the Son. The Son comes and offers himself “for sin.” The Holy Spirit’s part is to become God’s onboard presence in our lives—which is largely Paul’s subject in the rest of this chapter. But for now, briefly, Paul wants us to know that the Spirit of God makes his home within us and begins to set our house in order.
The Spirit of God enables a “walk,” declares Paul, that (utterly amazingly!) fulfills “the just requirements of the law” (Romans 8:4). I’ll write that again: The Spirit of God enables a “walk” that fulfills “the just requirements of the law” (Romans 8:4). That means—staggeringly!—that when God sees you and me taking baby steps, what he sees is giant Spirit-empowered strides. When we feel like we are offering obedience that is but scraps, God receives it as an abundance produced by the Spirit of the One who fed 5,000 with two loaves and five fishes. When we are aware our motives are mixed, God purifies them by the Spirit of love that he has poured out in our hearts because we are in Christ.
God loves us. The Son gives himself for us. The Holy Spirit lives in us. The result: We—grab on to this!—offer love for God and neighbor that God himself finds satisfying. The mindset is utterly different than the “I’m a worthless shlub” mentality that besets so many people. I pray that this truth breaks in upon you today—and makes this a very special day.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Midday Eucharist
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:145-176; Numbers 22:41–23:12; Romans 7:13-25; Matthew 21:33-46
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)
Balaam had a good day today. He consults the Lord before speaking, and then blesses rather than curses Israel.
But today we focus on the epistle.
Today’s reading in Romans is a head-scratcher. Paul has just said, “Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies” and “Sin will have no dominion over you” (Romans 6:12, 14). But here he writes as though the opposite were true: “I am of the flesh, sold into slavery unto sin” and “With my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin” (Romans 7:14, 25).
For centuries, students of Paul have argued among themselves about Paul’s meaning in Romans 7:14-25. Some think that by adding Romans 7’s realism about feeling defeated by sin to Romans 6’s theme of victory over sin, Paul describes the normal Christian’s—including his own—continuing struggle with sin. Here, they say, Paul vividly engages the existential reality of a salvation that has already taken hold of the believer, but that has not yet become complete, and will not be made complete until final resurrection. Others think that Paul is describing two different people: in Romans 6 the Christian believer, and in Romans 7 the (probably Jewish) not-yet-believer, whose conscience has been pricked by the law.
According to the first view, Romans 7’s bemoaning the effects of sin describes part of (almost) every Christian’s life. According to the second view, only Romans 6’s celebration of victory over sin, and not Romans 7’s lament about the effects of sin, describes the Christian life—or at least what the Christian life is supposed to be.
Those who hold the first view worry that the second view leads to a naïve and shallow triumphalism about the Christian life—“If I’m not feeling the victory at every moment, there must be something wrong with me. Maybe I’m not really saved.” Those who hold the second view worry that the first view results in a sense that the Christian life is depressing and morbidly defeatist—“The best I can hope for in my Christian life is to get used to being justified as a sinner, feeling bad enough about my sin that I will constantly confess it and receive absolution.”
I happen to think that in Romans 7 Paul does reflect on the believer’s awareness of the drag of sin to which they are susceptible (the first view), even though they know the truths of Romans 4 & 5’s message that justification comes by faith and Romans 6’s good news that new life has taken hold of them. Sin still indwells, and it disturbs us, because it’s not supposed to be there!
The resolution awaits Romans 8, where Paul will turn to the power of the Holy Spirit to lead us, to bear witness to our (self-condemning) spirits that we are indeed God’s children, to groan with us at our struggle as sinners in a still fallen world, to mold us to further conformity to Christ’s image, to shout down any lingering voices of condemnation, and to remind us that even in this life “we are more than conquerors.”
Romans 7 allows us to acknowledge what we all feel: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” Romans 7 gives us words for the near schizophrenia we feel when we find ourselves at war within ourselves over “let Thy will be done” and “let my will be done.” Romans 7 gives voice to our cry for deliverance, for rescue—and in that very gift, Romans 7, sandwiched as it is between Romans 4-6 and Romans 8, reminds us that the Lord has already heard our cry. Faith justifies, the Spirit intercedes, Christ molds, the Father loves—the victory that began at the cross and resurrection will be completed, for “the sufferings of this present time (including the lingering—sometimes debilitating— effects of sin) are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us” (Romans 8: 18).
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalms 120, 121, 122, 123; Numbers 22:21-38; Romans 7:1-12; Matthew 21:23-32
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)
Three insights today on how important the heart is. Balaam’s behavior may be restrained by external restraint, but his wayward heart is untouched. Paul reflects on the powerlessness even of God’s good law to restrain sinful passions. Jesus calls out the folly of professed faith that proves faithless, and commends honest resistance to faith when it turns into true profession and discipleship.
Balaam’s “bit & bridle.” Balaam’s is a cautionary tale. He knows enough to do as he’s told. Yahweh has instructed him to accept Balak’s summons to court. Moreover, we will discover that, at God’s command, Balaam will not offer the curse on Israel that Balak demands. Yet God knows that Balaam’s “way is perverse,” that is, his heart does not belong to him. Balaam only does as much as he’s told, and no more. He will be a mouthpiece, but he will not give himself to be a follower of the Lord. All along, Balaam will be shrewdly looking to his own interests.
It is richly ironic that it is by means of a donkey that the Lord channels Balaam’s behavior and then speaks to him. “A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of fools,” says Proverbs 26:3. And Psalm 32:9 cautions, “Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.” In Balaam’s case, the donkey is the smart one, and the human is the one without understanding who needs bit and bridle. Even with the bit and bridle of the donkey’s turning from the path and speaking on Yahweh’s behalf, Balaam yields merely external, behavioral obedience.
When the human heart is dead to the Lord, it doesn’t matter what circumstances or what voices the Lord uses. Unless the Lord makes the dead heart live, the response will be one of a dead person—the walking death of spiritual death.
A good divorce. In this, the first paragraph of Romans 7, the apostle Paul reflects on the way that, holy as it is, God’s law is unable to solve the problem of spiritual death. Ultimately, the law is unable to put an effective bit and bridle on “sinful passions.” To the contrary, by forbidding them, the law makes them more attractive and more powerful, accentuating the need for a completely new start, a completely new set of desires.
Paul employs two images—first, the image of a divorce by which one person becomes as dead to the other. It’s a nuanced metaphor—in this metaphor we are the wife trapped in a bad marriage; and we are released when “the husband dies” (understood, becomes dead to us through divorce — Romans 7: 3). In the rest of his epistle, Paul makes it clear that his point here is limited: in Christ, we actually become keepers of the law in its deepest sense, for now we have the capacity to love God (Romans 5:5; 8:28) and our neighbor (13:8-10). The law’s death-sentence against sin and disobedience has been satisfied in God’s setting forth his Son as propitiating sacrifice (Romans 3:25). In this sense, the law is now dead to us. And we are dead to any claim of condemnation that the law would otherwise have over us (Romans 8:1-4).
It’s to this effect that Paul uses his second image in this paragraph: the law killed us by provoking in us the desperation of our hearts (“all kinds of covetousness”) that made the need for the cross so apparent. Thus, we have been divorced from the law (the law is dead to us) and we have died to the law (our old, guilty self was crucified with Christ on the cross). With our old husband (the law) dead, we are as though raised from the dead ourselves. We have entered a new marriage, a marriage to Christ Jesus. In this marriage, we are able to live by the Spirit, obey gladly and from the heart, and “bear fruit for God” (Romans 7:4).
Praise be that the law has done its work of pointing up the need for a blood-soaked cross. Praise be for the living Christ who now lives, by the Spirit, in us to reproduce his life through us.
Two sons. Then there are the two sons of Matthew 21. One declares obedience to his father, but never follows through. That son is the embodiment of the religious leaders who profess loyalty to Israel’s God, but who can muster up only a slothful and faithless, “We don’t know,” when God’s Son demands they deal with him and his mission. The other son says he’s not interested in doing the father’s will, but reconsiders. This son is the embodiment of the sinners and tax-collectors and prostitutes and ne’er-do-wells who repent and follow Jesus.
Better the honest “Not interested” that reconsiders its rashness than the dishonest “I’m all in!” that is, and remains, mere lip service.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 106; Numbers 22:1-21; Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 21:12-22
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)
Introducing Balaam. This week’s readings in Numbers recount the sad adventures of the Syrian fortune-teller Balaam. He’s most remembered for the fact that Yahweh rebukes him by making his donkey talk. Scripture never gives him a title, such as prophet. But he makes a living by taking fees as a diviner. He at least respects Yahweh, calling him “Yahweh, my God” (Numbers). To his credit, Balaam refuses to curse those whom Yahweh blesses. Numbers even records him rendering a powerful Messianic prophecy: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near—a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel” (Numbers 24:17).
Nonetheless, Scripture’s verdict concerning Balaam is not good. When it comes to Yahweh, Balaam is more a user than a believer. He is remembered as a false teacher who subtly led Israelites into immorality and idolatry (Numbers 31:15-20; Revelation 2:14), ever looking to turn a profit by hawking words from God (Deuteronomy 23:4-5; Joshua 13:22; 2 Peter 2:15; Jude 11). Numbers 31 records the fact that the Israelites eventually kill him—no doubt, to rid themselves of his pernicious influence. (Numbers 31:8).
It’s only fitting that we begin a week’s worth of readings about someone who uses religion instead of submitting to it on the day we read the apostle Paul’s “Gotta Serve Somebody” passage, that is, Romans 6:12-23.
You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
Grace has one rule: You’re free. Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means — Romans 6:15. In Jesus Christ, I am justified. I am accepted into the very presence of God himself, as the hymn says, “Just as I am without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me…” That means I can stop trying to justify myself. I can stop trying to prove to you that I’m good enough. I can stop sinning against you by using you to feel good about myself—like taking a girlfriend just so I can be seen with her, or calling you only when I need something from you. I am free to stop asserting my rights and getting my needs met, so I can focus on what benefits you. For Paul, that’s what it means to live under grace instead of law.
And so, as Jesus says in this past Sunday’s gospel reading, being ready to give a cup of cold water becomes an instinct I don’t even have to think about. As does Matthew 25’s visiting Him in prison and in the hospital, clothing him, feeding him—as our baptismal vows put it: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
Grace has one school: the church. … obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted — Romans 6:17. Having been submitted for years to a sensei to learn a martial art for cutting targets with a steel Japanese samurai sword, it’s scary to watch YouTube videos of “backyard samurai.” Not only are they dangerous, but they haven’t submitted themselves to learning the whole manner of being and the attitude that goes with cutting those targets—a way of moving your body in space, of timing, of grace that’s just as much a part of the art as is cutting the targets.
The Christian faith is just like that. We can’t free form it, or we will be in big trouble. That’s why Paul says we have been “entrusted” to a “form of teaching” to give us our bearings. That form of teaching is the Scriptures, and then the way the Scriptures were summed up in the creeds and embodied in the church’s worship. It’s why it’s important to make worship-filled reading of and submitting to Scripture your first appointment of the day. It’s why worship with the saints—even in pandemic via streaming—is vital. It keeps us from being dangerous “backyard samurai.”
For Paul, we don’t have to—in fact, we can’t—face the challenges of each day on our own. Whether the challenges are the ones everybody is facing—like global pandemic or societal reckoning with race—or ones that are personal to us—a relationship that isn’t working or health that’s failing or income that’s vanishing—we are not left to sort things out all on our own. We need to begin with “the form of teaching to which we were entrusted.”
Grace has one goal: your sanctification. … so now you present your members as slaves to righteousness for (older translations render unto) sanctification. — Romans 6:19. Paul says that the arc of our lives is heading in one direction or another “unto lawlessness” which will eventuate in eternal death, or “unto sanctification” which will eventuate in eternal life. Of course, his premise is that outside of Christ we are already dead, and that when we accept Christ it is as though we are alive from the dead—for eternal life has already taken hold.
C. S. Lewis wrote a profound parable about this reality. In The Great Divorce, Lewis imagines a bus ride from hell to heaven. In his fantasy (and it is a fantasy), residents of hell have the option of staying in heaven if they wish. The problem is: few of them do so. They are so acclimated to the ghostliness and the isolation of their place in hell (habits they acquired over the course of their lives on earth) that the solidity of the things in heaven and the nonstop joyful companionship of heaven are distinctly uncomfortable. Lewis’s point is that eventually, every one of us is going to wake up on the other side. There we will find that our whole lives have been preparing us to feel right at home where we are: the hell of narcissistic isolation or the heaven of blessed fellowship.
So, grace makes you free not to be a narcissistic jerk. Grace takes you deeper and deeper into Scripture and the Church’s story—and takes that story deeper and deeper into you. And grace makes this day one more step further into the life of heaven that has already taken hold in you.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+