Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 120; Psalm 121; Psalm 122; Psalm 123; Zechariah 11:4-17; 1 Corinthians 3:10-23; Luke 18:31-43

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)

“…everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished” — Luke 18:31b-32a. There is an astonishing convergence in today’s reading between Zechariah’s prophecy and what Jesus says in Luke. 

Yahweh gives Zechariah the sad task of playing out an advance tableau of some of the most ironic aspects of Christ’s future redeeming work. Yahweh sends (in the person of Zechariah) a good shepherd. Symbolized by the names of his two staffs, the hallmarks of the shepherd’s coming are “Favor” and “Unity.” 

This good shepherd is rejected by false shepherds and even by the people he has been sent to shepherd. His wages—a most ironic prophecy—are thirty pieces of silver that are destined to be thrown “into the treasury” (Zechariah 11:12-13; and see Matthew 27:3-10). As a symbol of the people’s rejection of God’s favor toward them, Zechariah breaks the staff named “Favor.” 

Absent God’s favor, their unity cannot stand. Five hundred years before Zechariah’s time, the united kingdom had split into the rivals, Israel to the north and Judah to the south. Now, after the end of Babylonian exile, there is the potential for reunification. Instead, the people and their leaders are going to cement the wall of division: Samaria versus Judah. Symbolic of that disunity, Zechariah breaks his second staff, the one named “Unity,” thus “annulling the family ties between Judah and Israel” (Zechariah 11:14). No sadder prophecy was ever uttered. 

Even though in Luke, Jesus points to all the “Easter eggs” in the writings of the prophets, his disciples can’t understand what he is telling them about what lies ahead of them in Jerusalem (namely, his death and resurrection). In truth, it is “hidden” from them by God’s mysterious providence (Luke 18:34b). Nonetheless, Luke records a magnificent anticipation of the reversal of Zechariah’s breaking of the covenant of “Favor,” in the plea uttered by the blind man of Jericho: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Luke 18:38-39). Of course, Jesus responds in the affirmative: “[Y]our faith has saved you” (Luke 18:42). Deeper even than the restoration of this man’s physical sight, is the gift of insight into the restored covenant of “Favor.” 

Paul writes to the Corinthians in the full wake of Christ’s redemptive work. Not only has Christ restored Zechariah’s covenant of “Favor,” Christ has restored the covenant of “Unity.” That is why Paul is tasked “like a skilled master builder” to build on the foundation that is Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:10-11). What Paul sees himself helping to build is “God’s temple,” which is comprised of followers of Christ: “For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:17b). God help you if you tear down God’s holy (and therefore united) temple. 

Negatively, Paul does not want that holy unity to be destroyed by a spirit of party-loyalty or by division into cults of personality. Anathema to him are cries of: “I am of Paul!” or “I am of Apollos!” or “I am of Cephas (Peter)!” or even “I am of Christ!” (see 1 Corinthians 1:12). You can just imagine what Paul would say about cries of: “I am of Rome!” or “I am of Constantinople!” or “I am of Calvin!” or “I am of Arminius!”, much less of “I am of the Cathedral!” or “I am of All Saints” … or “of St. Michael’s … or “of fill-in-the-blank!”

Positively, Paul wants believers to bask in the realization that they are that temple. Paul says, “God’s Spirit dwells in you” (1 Corinthians 3:16). He’s talking about the very Shekinah glory that inhabited the Tabernacle in the wilderness, providing unerring guidance to the children of Israel. He means the same Shekinah glory that so filled the Temple at Solomon’s dedication that everyone had to flee. That same glory-cloud, asserts Paul, lives in each of Christ’s followers and among them all together. That’s why he can exclaim, “all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God” (1 Corinthians 3:21b-23). 

I can scarcely take in all that Paul’s “all things are yours” means. There’s no sphere of life that is unworthy of the believer’s interest and engagement—whether science and math, or art and literature; whether family or work or leisure. For we belong Christ, Lord of it all—and he superintends it all, and that, to the glory of God. 

To whatever the Lord calls you today, be blessed in it,

Reggie Kidd+

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 106:1-18; Zechariah 10:1-12; Galatians 6:1-10; Luke 18:15-30

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)

Yesterday was Christ the King Sunday, marking the end of the Christian year. Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent, marking the beginning of the Christian year. This week’s readings transition us from one year to the next. 

In a series of visions in the second half of his book, the prophet Zechariah gives glimpses of the remarkable things the Lord of the covenant is going to do in days to come. 

Zechariah lived through the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple, following Judah’s release from the Babylonian Captivity. There was joy in Judah, but it was muted. There was a new temple, but its grandeur and scale were not as glorious as the temple Solomon had built. There was a sort of self-governance, but the Persians were really in charge, and Judah was permitted no king. What has happened to God’s promise to establish his Kingdom on earth through his people Israel? What of the promise to David that one from his line would sit on the throne in perpetuity? What about the picture of a united people of God under David and Solomon, before the split into a northern kingdom (Israel) and a southern kingdom (Judah)? Was that vision gone forever? Zechariah (along with his contemporary, the prophet Haggai) provided perspective.

In the previous chapter, Zechariah had foretold Palm Sunday, when Israel’s triumphant King would come “humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9). In today’s chapter, Zechariah imagines the Lord raising up “warriors in battle” to reunite Israel in the north (Joseph) and Judah in the south: “I will bring them back because I have compassion on them, and they shall be as though I had not rejected them” (Zechariah 10:6). Zechariah foresees a new exodus experience for God’s people: “They shall pass through the sea of distress … and all the depths of the Nile dried up … Assyria shall be laid low …the scepter of Egypt shall fall” (Zechariah 10:11). As though squinting to see something way off on the horizon of history, Zechariah espies the contours of the new exodus Christ will accomplish by the baptism of his own death and resurrection. Zechariah also discerns in the distance the reunification of the Lord’s people. By the pouring out of his Spirit, God will bring about the conquest of the nations, enabling Christ’s apostles to take the gospel from Jerusalem and Judea (the old southern kingdom) to Samaria (the old northern kingdom) and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). 

Zechariah’s visions are a profound preparation for the hope of Advent, and for the promise they bear of the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. 

This week’s readings in Luke find Jesus on the last leg of his journey to Jerusalem. There he will accomplish humanity’s redemption, for there he will inaugurate God’s kingdom through his death and resurrection. Along the way, Jesus reminds his disciples of the primary place that children and a childlike faith play in the kingdom of God: “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (Luke 18:17). For at least one man—“a certain ruler”—what was preventing such childlike faith was his great wealth (Luke 18:18-24). Jesus perceives that this “certain ruler” was incapable of coupling both a childlike faith and a wisely detached stewardship of wealth. As a result, Jesus puts before him a decisive choice (I paraphrase): “Lose the wealth and gain faith, that is, gain me! Or keep the wealth, and never see the value you’d find in me!”

You and I may not face a choice between wealth and non-wealth, but we do face the same choice between childlike receptivity and blasé dismissiveness.  

And, finally, this week’s epistle readings amount to a Pauline potpourri. Paul is, in my view, New Testament’s clearest expounder of the “so what” of redeemed and kingdom-conditioned life. This week’s epistle readings cull wisdom on faith’s “so what” from significant short passages in various Pauline letters. 

For most of his letter to the Galatians, Paul has stressed that there’s nothing they can add to what Christ has done for them to win right standing with God. Christ has become a curse for them. They have been baptized in his name. Now they are free of sin’s curse, and they belong to God’s family sheerly by faith in Christ. Period. 

Now, at the beginning of this closing paragraph in Galatians 6, he offers “desiderata” that anticipate those he will later compose for the Romans (see the Daily Devotions with the Dean for 7/17/2020). Christians’ freedom from fear of the law’s condemnation does not free them from the law of love. Thus, they (we) need to work at: 

• restoring transgressors, 

• bearing one another’s burdens, 

• individually testing our own work, 

• supporting our leaders, 

• sowing to the Spirit (the fruit of which, as he has just explained, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—Galatians 5:22), and 

• working for the good of all, especially for the family of faith.

 Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Sunday Worship

Noonday Prayer

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This line from Psalm 102 hits me hard every time I come across it: “…you have lifted me up and thrown me away” (v. 10b). The psalmist describes himself not just as one of life’s discards, set upon by enemies and detractors (which he is—see verse eight). No. He can’t eat, he can’t drink, and he can’t sleep, because he feels like God is so mad at him that He has simply picked him up and tossed him aside. Like a piece of trash. Like an unwanted deuce in a game of Rummy. Who hasn’t felt that way? I have, and I imagine you have as well. 

What makes our anonymous psalmist’s song worth including in Israel’s hymnal is the way he processes his angst about God’s anger by letting his petition turn to praise. He begins with, “Hear my cry … answer me speedily…” (Psalm 102:1-2). But he transitions to, “But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever…” (Psalm 102:12). And he ends with, “The children of your servants shall live secure…” (Psalm 102:28). 

Today’s passages are a study in pressing in: to the Lord’s presence, even when the Lord seems threatening or distant or aloof. Today’s passages provide courage and resources for those times when you feel you may have been “thrown away.” 

Malachi & self-inventory. Malachi addresses people who are too quick to call on the Lord to aid them in their distress. They are people of the covenant. That means they know the God of the exodus, Yahweh who rescues. That also means they know the God who has bound himself to them , and who has provided them with the terms of covenant life. Those terms include loving him as he has loved them, with exclusive and lavish love. It means protecting the marriage bed, dealing in truth, caring for dependents and the needy. And it includes giving to Yahweh “the full tithe” (i.e., ten percent) on produce and earnings (Malachi 3:5,8-10). 

There’s nothing about these stipulations that earn anybody a relationship with God. There’s no merit to these requirements. There’s nothing about them that makes God love anybody. These practices are simply the way people who have been loved from eternity love in return. The stipulations of the covenant are how those who have been rescued and cared for in their distress reflect that care for those around them who are in similar need. The covenant calls for gratitude’s response to grace. 

As it is, however, Malachi judges Israel to be living out of sync with covenant life. Thus, he says, when “the messenger of the covenant” comes as they hope he will, he will not come in the way they had hoped. He will come to refine and to purify: “For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offering to the Lord in righteousness” (Malachi 3:2-3). In other words, the Lord will come to make things right—just not in the way they had expected! 

And so, Malachi calls for self-inventory, lest the children of the covenant discover the coming of “the day of the Lord” is an unpleasant experience. “Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of Hosts” (Malachi 3:7). Renounce sorcery—which is a kind of manipulative mock-worship. Maintain faithful and loving marriages. Speak truth. Deal justly with workers and aliens. Be generous, and present as worship “the full ten percent” of your produce and income—symbolic of your full self-offering to the God who purchased you out of slavery (again Malachi 3:5,8-10).  

The season of Advent is right around the corner, a time when we remember the way John the Baptist came as just such a messenger of the covenant, crying: “Prepare the way of the Lord!” It is a good time for redemptive self-inventory, so that Christ may be born anew in our hearts. 

James & patience. James provides example after example of the need for patient endurance. Farmers plant, and then wait. Prophets prophesy, and then wait. Job waits and waits and waits (even if, as we read a few weeks ago, not especially patiently). But wait he does—and eventually the Lord shows himself to be compassionate and merciful. 

Jesus & persistent prayer. Jesus’s parable about the unjust judge (which does not intend for us to draw false inferences about God) teaches that it’s not just a matter of patient endurance—it’s prayerful patient endurance. That’s an important lesson for me. I can hold a “spiritual plank position” for a long time, gritting my teeth, willing myself to hang on, not letting my back buckle. I can wait and wait and wait for the Lord to show up and do his thing. What’s not so easy for me to do is pray and pray and pray while I’m holding that plank. That’s something for me to work on. 

And that takes us back to Psalm 102. The psalmist shows us how not to let ourselves get stuck in a rut of feeling rejected by God. The psalmist determines to cling to the faith—he assumes a “spiritual plank position”—despite his feelings. Then he composes this beautiful song that begins with petition, transitions to praise, and ends on a note of hopefulness. What a great example for you and for me. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Noonday Prayer

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105:1-22; Malachi 2:1-16; James 4:13–5:6; Luke 17:20-37

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)

The covenantal life. “My covenant with [Levi] was a covenant of life and well-being, which I gave him; this called for reverence…” — Malachi 2:5. It’s worth pondering two features of the “covenant of life and well-being” that Malachi promotes, for they are as much about “life and well-being” in our own day as they were in his. 

The covenant with Levi was a “covenant of life and well-being,” in the first place, because it called for instruction in God’s Word (Malachi 2:6-8). Priests are ministers of the Word, because from cover to cover the Bible envisions the knowledge of God and of his ways jacketing the whole earth: “But the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). Thus, the goal of teachers of the law is to work themselves out of a job: “No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord” (Jeremiah 31:34). For instance, the writer of these Daily Devotions with the Dean will have done his job when his readers need him no longer. And until then, he is responsible to “guard knowledge” and to make sure it is true instruction that he offers (Malachi 2:7). Dear Lord, let it be so!

The covenant with Levi was a “covenant of life and well-being,” in the second place, because it bound God and us together in an indissoluble bond of mutual sacrifice. God established sacrifices of unblemished and specifically prescribed animals, a “pre-reflection” of a final and uniquely unblemished sacrificial lamb: his own dear Son. That sacrifice, in payment of the sin of the world, would restore life to spiritually dead people and return well-being to all of us whose lives have been wracked by the crushing consequences of sin. 

Israel’s covenantal duty—channeled through, and overseen by, the priestly sons of Levi—was to make sure that God’s self-offering in sacrifice was matched by his people’s self-offering in sacrifice. That is why Malachi rails against the holding back of the best of the flocks (Malachi 1:8,12-14), and against the withholding of tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:8-9). Christ’s sacrifice marks the end of the need for animal sacrifice, but it only heightens the significance of our offering ourselves as “living sacrifices” (Romans 12:1-2), and continuing to give “tithes and offerings” as expressions of the fact that we do not belong to ourselves, for we “were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23). “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee…”

God’s oneness and ours. “Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another…? … [S]he is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did not one God make her?” — Malachi 2:10,15. Extraordinarily, Malachi anticipates the apostle Paul’s perspective on the way belief in the “oneness” of God shapes our ethical lives. In the letter to the Romans, Paul shows that, as a Jew who believes that there is “one God,” he finds it inconceivable that there would be different  routes to a relationship with God—for example, one for the Jew and another for the Gentile.   God is not the deity of separate tribes. He is the God of heaven and earth. Therefore, he has one plan for a singular redemption of the entire human race: his Son Jesus Christ. “Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith” (Romans 3:29-30). 

This thought has revolutionary implications for every aspect of life. It cuts the heart out of any form of racism, classism, sexism, or tribalism. It means those who believe in this one God are obligated to see in every human being an expression of God’s likeness and image. It means those who believe in this God must treat every bearer of his image and likeness with the same dignity, respect, and love that they owe to God himself. That’s why Malachi denounces teachers for “partiality in your instruction”—the spinning of God’s story in favor of one party or race or family or check-writer over another. 

Thus, Malachi appeals to the fact that we have “one Father” and “one God” in order to rebuke people who treat each other faithlessly (Malachi 2:10). In doing so, he exposes all spheres of life: questionable business practices; “enhanced” résumés; tax fraud; plagiarism and academic cheating; narcissistic self-promotion; deceitful leadership; and exploitative relationships (to name just a few).

Malachi invokes the oneness of God, especially, to reprove husbands who have been faithless to “the wife of your youth … your companion and your wife by covenant” (Malachi 2:14). “Did not one God make her?” asks the prophet. I wish my mother’s father had asked himself that question when he left home to strike out on his own as soon as my mother graduated from high school. If he’d just asked himself that one question—“Did not the same God who made me also make Myrtle?”—what loneliness, bitterness, and desperation of straits might he have spared himself and his family? To state Malachi’s concerns in positive terms: the God who reveals himself in the Bible loves thriving marriages—not to mention flourishing friendships, smooth working relationships, functional governance, comity among nations and people groups—because he is about oneness. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in eternal communion, the Lord, invites the creatures whom he loves into an eternal dance of love and harmony. May you experience the dance. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Can you contribute to Christmas gifts for women in need this year?

Christmas Gifts for Women in Need

For many of us, the current pandemic has created the need for change.  For some, it has been the need to restructure family responsibilities, for others, it is a change in employment.  That has been the case for me; but when God closes a door, he often opens another.  As I stepped down as director of The Inheritance House, I was presented with an opportunity to work in a women’s residential program for the victims of human trafficking.  The strength and resilience of the women I work with is extraordinary.  Most have very few worldly possessions, and some come to the program with only the clothes on their backs.  While they are provided with the essentials through the program, there is little budget for ‘extras’ that most of us take for granted.  

This is an opportunity for the Cathedral congregation to provide some well-deserved treats for these women for Christmas.   Here is a list of some of the requests of the residents.  If you would like to participate, please stay within the list provided, as other gifts may not be permitted in the facility.  You are also welcome to give a monetary gift; these funds will be used to purchase special individual gifts or to purchase gifts for all the women to enjoy. 

Please do not wrap the gifts as they will need to be approved before gifting them; feel free to include wrapping materials as the staff at the women’s facility will be wrapping the gifts.  Please bring any gifts to the Cathedral before December 20th. If you have any question, please feel free to contact me directly at rosesapp@yahoo.com.          -Deacon Rose

Scented bath gel/moisturizer

Face cleanser/moisturizer

Make up (for light and darker skin, mascara/eye shadow/lipstick/lip balm)

Hair accessories, earrings, nail kits

2021 calendars or planners

MP3 player

Room air fresheners (No candles)

Stuffed animals

Purse/wallet

Clothing (women’s):  sweaters/casual jackets (Med., Large, X-large)

Coloring or comic books (for adults)

Art supplies (drawing/colored pencils, paint sets or acrylic paint, paint brushes/foam brushes, scrapbook supplies, canvases, Art kits)

Games

Walmart gift cards

Find the donation box in the Great Hall!

Midday Eucharist

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 101; Psalm 109; Malachi 1:1,6-14; James 3:13–4:12; Luke 17:11-19

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)

Each of today’s readings provides a distinct angle of vision on the horror of sin. Presumption and stinginess are to the fore in Malachi. Ingratitude is front and center in Luke. In James, it’s everything and the kitchen sink. To keep it brief, I’m going to focus on James. 

Sin in James. For good reason, the Episcopal Eucharistic Prayer A confesses: “…we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death….” Sin is a pervasive and dominating force, taking us captive to soul-destroying appetites and self-deceiving motives, all of which leads to self- and other-destroying actions. James displays a white-hot anger over the sin that has reestablished dominion over these “beloved brethren” (James 1:5). Sin has made them, at least for the moment, “adulteresses” (James 4:4). Despite the masculine translation the NRSV employs (“adulterers”), the Greek word James uses is feminine, and it invokes Ezekiel’s and Hosea’s portraits of Israel as Yahweh’s unfaithful bride, sharing her intimacies with false gods. “Adulterous wife,” Ezekiel exclaims in disbelief, “who receives strangers instead of her husband!” (Ezekiel 16:32). 

James is stunned that his readers have allowed hell to reestablish a foothold on earth. The very existence of his audience is supposed to be a vanguard of the age to come—an advance presence of the marriage of heaven on earth (James 1:18). What makes today’s passage so powerful is the not-so-subtle appeal that James makes to the Beatitudes his Elder Brother Jesus had taught in the Sermon on the Mount—an appeal, therefore, to becoming once again “a kind of first fruits” of new creation. A place where God has once again wedded his people, and where heaven has invaded earth. 

Sin’s antidote in James. Today’s passage in James comprises the closest thing to a commentary on the beatitudes that you will find in all the New Testament:

When Jesus says that it is “the poor in spirit” to whom belongs the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3), what he means is what James says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. … Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:6,10). 

Jesus calls those who mourn “blessed” (Matthew 5:4). It is they, not the envious, who will be comforted. James doesn’t just double down on Jesus’s teaching. He quintuples down: “Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection” (James 4:9). There’s no better explanation of what Jesus means by blessing mourning than here in James, where James contrasts appropriate sorrow  over your own sinwith the stinging sorrow of  “bitter envy” (Jas 3:14). Envy is bad because it is sadness over what others have that you don’t (possessions, importance, position, whatever). Envy is a sadness for which there is no comfort. It only makes you covet and fight to get what you don’t have, or at least to keep others from enjoying what they do have — maybe envy will even lead you to take your complaint to God (James 4:3). Envy is a black hole of emotional energy. It only destroys. God’s forgiving grace readily turns mourning to laughter and dejection to joy. Trust me on this. 

Jesus promises the world to the meek: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). A person who is meek has self-restraint, a kind of spiritual poise. At the end of James 3:13, where the NRSV has “gentleness born of wisdom,” the Greek (and the older RSV) actually have “meekness of wisdom.” Ah, wisdom! Central to James’s teaching is wisdom, and wisdom succeeds not through brute strength and intimidation, but through persuasion and by striving for common ground. As Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has been saying of late (I paraphrase): “We need legislation for a more just society, but more, we need hearts to be persuaded to live more justly.” That’s the meekness of wisdom! 

Jesus urges a hunger and a thirst for righteousness that he promises will be satisfied (meaning God will satisfy it — Matthew 5:6). James promises a harvest of righteousness will come to those who sow — and who do so God’s way: in peace (James 3:18).

Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” (Matthew 5:7). James says, “The wisdom from above is … full of mercy and good fruits” (James 3:17). For both Jesus and James, a generosity of heart comes back to you. There’s much wisdom there!

Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). In echo, James says, “Purify your hearts” (James 4:8). And then when James describes the wisdom that comes from above, “pure” is the first attribute he gives it (James 3:17). That’s because the wisdom that comes from God is not diluted by worldly, carnal or demonic elements (James 3:15). And because purity of heart is, as philosopher Soren Kierkegaard would later observe, “to will one thing,” purity of heart underlies James’s persistent theme against “partiality or hypocrisy” (3:17) and double-mindedness (4:8). 

According to Jesus, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). For James, precisely echoing Jesus’ words, it is those who “make peace” who will see right prevail. 

“Blessed are the persecuted …” (Matthew 5:10). The theme of persecution is more subtle in James, but it’s certainly here: “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” (Jas 4:4). 

James’s charge to us throughout is quite simple (again, I paraphrase): you are not called to be “adultresses.” You are called  to be God’s bride! How dare you break that trust! How dare you give yourself to someone else! 

Moreover, James promises that if we but resist the devil’s adulterous advances, and draw near instead to God, we will find that all along the God who loves us dearly has been most eager for us to make that move: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8). 

Collect of James of Jerusalem. Grant, O God, that, following the example of your servant James the Just, brother of our Lord, your Church may give itself continually to prayer and to the reconciliation of all who are at variance and enmity; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, p. 245). 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Reflections on Women's Uncommon Prayers by Ellen Ceely

Reflections on Women’s Uncommon Prayers

By Ellen Ceely

“For Making Me a Woman”

By Ms. Marty Conner, p. 8 from Women’s Uncommon Prayers

For making me a woman
in what still so often
seems like a man’s world,
I thank you.
Because you taught me by example
that power is your gift,
and not my possession.

For giving me a body
though it sometimes fails me
and is not all I wish it was
or rather, a good deal more
than I wish it was,
I thank you.
Because you taught me 
that I am much more 
than my body
and yet my body is
your holy temple.

For calling me to be
more than I believe I can be,
and less
than I sometimes believe I am,
I thank you.
Because you taught me
that being is more than doing,
that who I am
and whose I am
are more important than
what I do
or what I have.

For all that you are
Creator,
Redeemer,
Sanctifier,
Great “I Am,”
I bless you
as you have so greatly blessed me.

My boss recently got me the book, "Women's Uncommon Prayers," because I expressed an interest in it and the one thing he'll always encourage is more reading. 

Some of the prayers aren't really prayers but more like poetry, which I love. 
Some of them are highly syncretistic and not quite what I’d say are in line with Church Doctrine, but they’re interesting to read all the same.
Some of them make me downright want to cry they're so beautiful.

They're not general prayers or prayers offered by men (which are also wonderful but that's not the point). They're prayers offered by women who have lived and struggled and believed and taught the faith as women. There's a special power to that. Just like I go to a female doctor because I feel I am better heard than I was by the male doctors I went to in the past, so also I find pieces of my soul in the writings of other women.

I'm only a few pages deep and I've already realized what drew me to this book in the first place. 

I grew up believing I was some kind of sub-human. Not necessarily in a negative way, and not because anyone around me used those words, but in the way that I think a lot of women grow up - specifically in very conservative Christian circles. It wasn't until I attended Bible School that I realized I was made in the image of God, not in the image of man. While Scripture clearly states that both men and women were made in his image (Gen. 1:26-27), due to the interpretation I was given of other biblical passages, I always believed that I had been made in the image of man. 

In other words: I was a copy of a copy. 

I don't have the words to accurately express how big of an impact this had on me or how, nine years later, I'm still unravelling all the effects of the beliefs I once held about what it means to be a woman. It never occurred to me that it was something to be thankful for. I thought it was something to overcome, to apologize for, and to hide.

I grew up hearing men lift their voices in prayer on a weekly basis while all of us women prayed silently in agreement, only praying aloud when men were not present. 
I believed my voice as a woman was not to be heard because it had the ability to somehow override that of a man's and thus take away from the glory of God.
I was both too worthy and not worthy enough to speak. Too worthy because I could overpower the voice or the prayers of a man. Not worthy enough because I was a woman, a mere copy of God’s creation. My very being proclaimed "the glory of man" (1 Corinthians 11:7) and that would distract from the worship of God. 

So I sat in silence and covered my head.

Maybe you can relate to this idea. Maybe it’s something you once believed or currently believe. Regardless of how you were raised or what churches you have attended, I hope this prayer speaks to you of your inherent worth as a woman made in the very image of God, portraying pieces of who he is to the world simply by existing. I hope this reminds you – or possibly even tells you for the first time in your life – that you are not a copy of a copy. You are not sub-human. You are made in the image of a loving, kind, and gracious Creator. 

I have no idea who any of the women in this book are, but I'm hearing their voices and they echo my own in a way I didn't realize my soul needed.