Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 106:1-18; Hosea 14:1-9; Acts 22:30–23:11; Luke 6:39-49
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)
The prophet Hosea has used powerful and penetrating metaphors and similes to communicate Yahweh’s persistent appeals to Israel. Yahweh is an estranged husband who will not be denied (1:2–3:5). He is a disappointed father who will not give up on his child/son (11:1-9). He is like a lion who roars both in wrath (5:14; 13:7) and in love (11:10).
Likewise, Hosea has used compelling metaphors and similes to characterize his people. Israel is (or is like) a wayward wife (1:2–3:5), a luxuriant vine (10:1), a trained heifer (10:11), a lost child/son (11:1-9), a flock of disoriented birds (8:11-12; 11:11).
Metaphor transfers the meaning of one thing to another for the sake of comparison (from the Greek metaphorein, meaning “transfer”). Simile likens one thing to another, likewise for the sake of comparison (from the Latin similis, meaning “similar, like”). Metaphor and simile provide the Bible with tools to reshape our perception of reality: “This is that, isn’t it?” or “This is like that, isn’t it?” Hosea wants us to reshape our imaginations—inviting us to “see” Yahweh’s resolute love for us, and our resolute rebelliousness and our squandering of his love. And Hosea wants us to picture how we might answer God’s resolute love by turning from our irresolution in love.
In the final chapter of the Book of Hosea, the prophet makes one last direct appeal, and then showers us with one last burst of metaphors and similes of his love. It’s really quite beautiful and moving, I think.
Yahweh’s appeal for repentance — Hosea 14:1-3,8
Acknowledge that you are the one responsible for your situation — 14:1
“Take words with you … the fruit of your lips” — i.e., name the specifics and ask for forgiveness — 14:2
Confess that the true God is your only hope — 14:3,8
Metaphors & similes of God’s amazing promises to “re-Edenize” the world through Israel: “I will be like the dew to Israel…” — Hosea 14:4-7
“…like the lily” — Yahweh will beautify the ugly.
“…like the forests of Lebanon” — Yahweh will strengthen the weak.
“…his shoots shall spread out” — Yahweh will make Israel’s now contracted spiritual heart once again expansive.
“…like the olive tree” — Yahweh will make Israel’s now unproductive spiritual life once again the source of spiritual value in the world.
“…fragrance like that of Lebanon” — Yahwah will replace the stench of rot exuding from Israel with a delightful aroma.
“…live beneath my shadow … flourish as a garden” — Where there is now withered spiritual dryness, Yahweh will create lush and luxuriant spiritual life.
Hosea offers one last simile for Yahweh and his people: “I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit” (Hosea 14:8 RSV). Whether he got it directly from Hosea or not, Vincent Van Gogh was profoundly shaped in his spiritual life by this image. The most memorable line (in my view) of the one sermon that survives from a young Vincent’s short career in ministry is the aspiration he urges upon us: “to be born again … to an evergreen life.” I pray that God’s evergreen life becomes your own.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Sunday Worship
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 102; Hosea 10:1-15; Acts 21:37–22:16; Luke 6:12-26
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)
Today’s readings are a study in the difference between reality and appearance—what German crisply calls the difference between “Sein und Schein.”
Reality & appearance: Hosea. To all appearances, Israel is flourishing like the “vine” God planted her to be (Hosea 10:1; and see Isaiah 5:1-5; Jeremiah 2:21; Psalm 80:8-11). Since the Garden of Eden, the earth has been devoid of spiritual life. Israel is God’s greenhouse, anticipating the return of Eden. Indeed, to outward appearances, life in the Northern Kingdom is good. Prosperity reigns. Good times roll. Altars (to false gods) and palaces abound. But the royal pomp and religious display in the Northern Kingdom is all show, no go! Because of the rot beneath the surface, God’s garden there is filled with “poisonous weeds” and “thorn and thistle” (Hosea 10:4,8). Words from the courts do not promote God’s justice, and so litigation flourishes “like poisonous weeds.” Worship focuses around golden calves at altars established in northern cities to rival Jerusalem’s temple in the south. And so, ritual there is empty—I think of a phrase that Paul will use centuries later: “having a form of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:5). The golden calves will be carried away as tribute to “the great king” of Assyria:
The inhabitants of Samaria tremble
for the calf of Beth-aven [literally, “house of worthlessness,” a mocking pun on Bethel, “house of God”].Its people shall mourn for it,
and its idolatrous priests shall wail over it,
over its glory that has departed from it.
The thing itself [i.e., the golden calf] shall be carried to Assyria
as tribute to the great king.
Ephraim shall be put to shame,
and Israel shall be ashamed of his idol. — Hosea 10:5-6
And where the golden calves once stood, supposedly emblematic of Israel’s identity of abundant life, there will grow “thorn and thistle.” Phony religiosity and sham spirituality will be unmasked.
Even so, though the exile is inevitable, the call to forsake the illusion always comes: “Sow righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you” (Hosea 10:12). It is always time to seek the Lord! There is always, insists Hosea, time to give up appearance for reality, to turn from “Schein” to “Sein.”
Reality & appearance: Luke. To all appearances, the “good life” consists in having money to burn, an ample palate, boundless fun … with everybody thinking you’re amazing. Jesus says otherwise:
Woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you…. — Luke 6:24-25
To Jesus “the good life” involves poverty, hunger, weeping … with everybody thinking you’re a “nothing”:
Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy…. — Luke 6:20-22
The reality is that the “good life” consists in a full reckoning with how upside down everything has become since the Garden. Pardon me for putting it this way, but it’s the good news of sin — the way things are isn’t the way things are supposed to be. We saw this truth being expressed over and over again in Ecclesiastes: it isn’t always the case that hard work is rewarded, that good guys always win. The real world isn’t “garbage in, garbage out.” Sometimes the boogerheads get put in charge. Sometimes there’s no adult on the playground. Sometimes we are living the world of The Lord of the Flies. Despite what parents and teachers tell us as kids, people don’t always play by the rules, and cheaters can prosper. “Haves” don’t necessarily deserve what they have; and “have nots” aren’t necessarily at fault for their not having.
Jesus has come to raise the lowly and bring down the exalted: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low” (Isaiah 40:4). He has come to humble the proud and ennoble the humiliated. The Kingdom of God puts the upside-down right side up again. Thus, Jesus calls his people to sacrifice for the impoverished, to share the hunger of the famished, to weep with those who weep…. and, in doing so, to be regarded as “fools for Christ” (1 Corinthians 4:10).
Reality & appearance: Acts. In today’s passage in Acts, Luke provides the second of three accounts of Paul’s call to follow and serve Christ (Acts 9:1-29; 22:1-21; 26:9-20). In this account, the voice is Paul’s. He wants his fellow Jews to know that his acceptance of Christ is not the renunciation of his Judaism, but a deeper acceptance of it. That’s why Paul address his Jerusalem audience not in the Greek of his letters to the Gentile churches but in Hebrew (probably actually Aramaic). Here Paul embraces the privilege of his birth in Tarsus, “no mean city,” his upbringing in Jerusalem, and his education “at the feet of Gamaliel” (one of the premier teachers of Pharisaic Judaism of the first century). Paul shares his audience’s zeal for God, a zeal that their tradition has taught them. And although he uses his social privilege to identify himself and connect with his fellow Jews, he will later explain (Philippians 3) it is not his fancy background, but knowing Christ, which is the source of his worth.
Paul’s point is that he has been found by the “Righteous One” who fulfills and embodies that tradition, and for whom that tradition has prepared him and his ministry. Christ has revealed himself to Paul as bringing a holy call from “the God of our ancestors” (Acts 22:14). God is sending Paul on a mission to fulfill the promise to Abraham that Israel would bring blessing to the nations: “for you will be his witness to all the world of what you have seen and heard” (Acts 22:15).
It’s pretty easy to fool the world with the slick shiny stuff. Golden calves. Riches. Social privilege. Yes, yes, we know that God is not fooled. But, sadly, we are often fooled. Sometimes we need clear reminders from God’s perspective about the true nature of what lies beneath appearances: his very real anger at injustice and false worship, his true ordering of what constitutes a good life, the true source of a person’s worth.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105:1-22; Hosea 5:8–6:6; Acts 21:27-36; Luke 6:1-11
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)
Today’s lessons are a study in what is the one great enemy of the human soul. This enemy the writer to the Hebrews names “the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13).
Sin’s deceitfulness: Hosea. The sin of false worship deceives the Northern Kingdom of Israel as to what threatens her well-being. Her spiritual adultery has brought dire consequences; she thinks she is under threat from outside forces (from Judah, the Southern Kingdom), and so she seeks unholy alliances (with Assyria). But it is chiefly the ferocity of Yahweh’s jealous love that she has brought upon herself: “I will be like a lion to Ephraim … I will tear and go away … I have hewn them by the prophets” (Hosea 5:14; 6:5).
The answer is really quite simple, if not easy:
“steadfast love” (as opposed to a false, temporary “love … like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early” — 6:4) …
“…and not sacrifice” (for though they could barely realize it at the time, one day there will be a Sacrifice that results in “a third day” raising up to life — 6:2),
“the knowledge of God” (that is, intimate and exclusive fellowship with their true Husband Yahweh) …
“…rather than burnt offerings” (“smells and bells” minus heart-devotion stir God’s disgust, not his affections—Hosea 6:6).
Sin’s deceitfulness: Luke. In Jesus’s confrontations with the scribes and the Pharisees (Luke 6:2,7) over the significance of the sabbath day, the “deceitfulness of sin” manifests itself in their misunderstanding of the significance of God’s commands generally, and his command to keep the sabbath specifically. David had put the well-being of his companions ahead of the sanctity of the showbread. In doing so, he had embodied the principle that “steadfast love” outweighs “sacrifice.” A thousand years later, Jesus comes as “the Son of Man” to underscore the point. God sympathizes with humans in their suffering. Healing, as he does, on the sabbath, Jesus, “the lord of the sabbath,” embodies the principle that the sabbath is a gift for restoration and healing, not a summons to smug, sanctimonious, spiritual self-promotion.
Sin’s deceitfulness: Acts. Sin’s deceitfulness is in full force when Paul’s enemies misrepresent him as having violated Jewish scruples about bringing Gentiles into the Temple precincts. Indeed, as far as Paul is concerned, Christ’s sacrifice has destroyed the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:14-16). But out of respect for his countrymen, Paul has honored their principles, leaving the Gentile members of his retinue outside while he enters the Temple. Paul desires to win unbelieving fellow Jews with God’s love, not bludgeon them over their spiritual blindness. Not so long ago he himself had not been able to figure out that God’s Messiah had come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus had had to appear to him personally. Now he is committed simply to telling and showing the good news, letting Christ do the convincing. Sin’s deceitfulness can be taken away by the Lord—it really can, but only by the Lord. Paul knows that. And so should we.
A fitting conclusion for our meditation on these passages is the urging from Hebrews: “Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin”—Hebrews 3:12-13.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Midday Eucharist
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 101; Psalm 109:1-4(5-19)20-30; Hosea 4:11-19; Acts 21:15-26; Luke 5:27-39
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)
Three phrases jump out at me this morning.
For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray… — Hosea 4:12. King Solomon’s heart had been divided. So many wives! So many concubines! So many different gods being worshiped under his roof! (See 1 Kings 11:1-8). His divided heart was followed in the next generation by a divided kingdom. The 10 northern tribes became the nation of Israel. The problem for the Northern Kingdom was that God had commanded that worship was to be centered in a single place (Deuteronomy 12), which became Jerusalem, now lying in the rival Southern Kingdom of Judah (the home of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin). In order to distinguish itself from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, the Northern Kingdom of Israel established its own centers of worship: Bethel and Dan. Further, the informal idolatry that Solomon had tacitly allowed into his expansive household became institutionalized in the Northern Kingdom. Israel built altars to compete with the one in Jerusalem. Israel adorned them with images that looked a lot like the golden calves from the Book of Exodus (1 Kings 12:26-33). And Israel blended worship of Yahweh with worship of old fertility gods of Canaan, the Baals and the Asherahs. By the time Hosea rises as a prophet, this is the way things have been for a couple of centuries. It’s assumed in the Northern Kingdom that you can combine worship of Yahweh with veneration of local deities, and that loyalty to the covenant is consistent with “sexual orgies” and “love of lewdness” (Hosea 4:19).
Of their idolatry and immorality Hosea says, “A wind has wrapped them in its wings” (Hosea 4:19). We might describe idolatry and immorality as simply having become “the air they breathe.”
I can’t get past Hosea’s sobering words without pausing to reflect on whether there are idolatrous impulses and immoral compulsions that are part of the air we breathe, a way of being that we take perfectly for granted. I’m not pointing fingers. I’m not launching into a tirade about this sin or that. I’m simply suggesting a pause for reflection here at the beginning of the day.
“…while the bridegroom is with them…” — Luke 5:27-39. The good news is that God didn’t leave us to pull ourselves out of the morass. (He knows we can’t!) He didn’t expect us to beautify ourselves, to clean ourselves up, and to make ourselves worthy of him. (He knows we can’t!) The good news, says the gospel of Luke, is that the Bridegroom that Hosea promised has come. He has come as both Bridegroom and Physician, “to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). As a result, the expected gloominess of repentance, says Jesus, is misplaced. Christ’s presence is a time for celebration, for joy—the Bridegroom has come, bringing a banquet of love! The restoration of the marriage of heaven and earth on the far side of judgment that Hosea had promised is freely offered in Jesus’s life and ministry. Bring out the new wine!
“You see, brother…” — Acts 21:20. The impact of the Groom’s coming was felt no stronger than by Luke’s traveling companion, the apostle Paul. To the Ephesians (whom we read him addressing in Acts 20) Paul will later write that Christ is Groom to the Church as the Church is Bride to Christ (Ephesians 5). To give concrete expression to the revelation of God’s love in Christ, Paul has spent the last year and a half collecting funds from the Gentile churches as a gift for the Jerusalem believers—those most skeptical of his ministry (about which Paul writes at some length in 2 Corinthians 8-9).
What is captured for us in today’s reading in Acts is the moment when Paul would have presented his gift to the Jerusalem church. We know that the gift is on his mind from what he says about it later (see Acts 24:17a). What is striking—indeed, breathtaking—is that the moment of the gift-giving is actually passed over in silence. The leaders of the Jerusalem church welcome Paul, listen to his account of what God has been doing among the Gentiles, and praise God for it (Acts 21:17-20a). Then, instead of thanking him for the not insignificant gift that would have accompanied the narrative, they ask him to go “a second mile.” Thus, “You see, brother….” Paul is expected to underwrite sacrifices in the Temple to refute charges that he is encouraging Jewish Christians to abandon Jewish practice. It’s stunning that there is no protest on his part, either of how odd it is to continue to participate in Temple sacrifices now that Christ has made his own once-for-all offering, nor of how they might have at least said, “Thanks, Paul, for this amazing expression of love you bring from the Gentile churches.”
That Paul accommodates the Jerusalem church’s leadership, and that he does so ungrudgingly, can be accounted for by one thing, and one thing only: he cannot do anything but love the Bride with the same patience, generosity of Spirit, and graciousness that the Groom has extended to him. I pray that your life and mine may be marked with the Groom’s love for the Bride he cherishes and champions.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Midday Eucharist
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89:1-18; Hosea 2:14-23; Acts 20:18-38; Luke 5:1-11
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)
Hosea. The Northern Kingdom of Israel has been enjoying decades of peace and prosperity. Unfortunately, these have also been decades of idolatry, immorality, and injustice. The prophet Hosea’s mission is to warn Israel that the days of “good times” are coming to an end, that the nation will be consigned to a horrible exile—but that the Lord will never stop loving his wayward people, and that in the end he will woo and win them back to himself.
Hosea’s mission is to embody the Lord’s message by imitating the relationship between God and his people. In these first two chapters of his book, Hosea is told to marry a prostitute, Gomer, and then to name her children “Scattered,” “Not Pitied,” and “Not My People” (Hosea 1:6-8). Once she—as she inevitably will—leaves him, Hosea is to go after her, and to redeem her out of the new, bad marriage into which she will have given herself. Then he is to rename her children “God sows,” “Pitied,” and “My People” (Hosea 2:22-23).
The Lord presents the restoration of the marriage of Hosea and Gomer as a parable of the way that he will re-establish his covenant with Israel on the far side of his judgment and Israel’s exile to, and enslavement in, Assyria. That day will be so wonderful it will be like a second exodus: “She shall respond as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt” (Hosea 2:15). She will no longer be married to the false gods (“Baal” means master-husband). Instead, she will be married once again to Yahweh: “I will take you for my wife in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord” (Hosea 2:20). Let it be noted, by the way, that this “knowing” is one of intimate amore. And it will take place on an earth that will have been “re-Edenized.” His people will be a new “Eve” on a “new earth” where harmony will have been restored between humans and the animal kingdom; where “the bow, the sword, and war” will have been abolished from the land; and where the earth will “answer the grain, the wine, and the oil” (Hosea 2:18,22).
With the coming of Christ, whom the apostle Paul calls the “Second Adam,” the human story has taken a giant step towards that re-Edenized creation. The Groom has come for his Bride; he has paid the price to win her from her bad marriage to the law, sin, and death (Romans 7:1-6). The Groom has done so in order that he may, even in the now, be wed to his Bride the Church, and “that we may bear fruit to God” (Romans 7:4). Think about that! And he will come once again for final consummation, to bring her to the banqueting table, the Marriage Feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6-10).
In the meantime, our reading in Acts gives indications of what the fruitfulness of our present wedding to our Groom looks like.
Acts. Paul’s speech to the Ephesian elders shows the humility, emotional investment, and loving endurance that Christ’s love prompts: “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia. I served the Lord with great humility and with tears and in the midst of severe testing by the plots of my Jewish opponents” (Acts 20:19-20). Paul’s speech bespeaks the determination to see through to a good end one’s life calling: “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace” (v. 24). His speech demonstrates a loving regard for the well-being of those under his care: “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood...In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (v. 29, 36). More than anything else, perhaps, Paul’s speech puts on display the deep-seated love that the Groom plants in the hearts of those who know what it is to be loved deeply and intimately by him: “There was much weeping among them all [at Paul’s departure]; they embraced Paul and kissed him….” (v. 37).
Luke. Peter’s experience of nets bursting with fish provides incentive to be attentive for, and ready to respond to, the Master’s voice. And it means, perhaps, being ready to respond even when it doesn’t seem to make sense. You get the feeling that Peter almost did an eye-roll when Jesus told him to put out his nets: “ Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing” (v.6). He adds (I paraphrase), “…but if you insist….” Peter is very surprised by the result of listening to Jesus and following his instructions. This incident can be instructive for us. When we hear his call, we might want to trust him and follow.
You never know when he’s going to say, “Let down your nets for a catch.”
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+