Hard Thinking - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 11/28/2023 •
Tuesday of the Twenty-sixth Week After Pentecost (Proper 29) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 121; Psalm 122; Psalm 123; Nahum 1:1–13; 1 Peter 1:13–25; Matthew 19:13–22 

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)  

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This Tuesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 29 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Today’s brilliant paragraph in 1 Peter leads with an intriguing metaphor: “[G]ird up the loins of your mind” (1 Peter 1:13a). As the editors of the New English Translation note, Peter employs “a figure of speech drawn from the Middle Eastern practice of gathering up long robes around the waist and tucking them under the belt to prepare for work of action.”  

I’m reminded of the way my samurai sword class prepares to clean the floors of our dojo at the end of class. We gather the divided skirts of our hakama and tuck them in our belt, so we move about on our knees and hands as we push moistened towels over the floorboards. “Girding your loins” means you are preparing to get to work. When it’s “the loins of our mind” that we are told to “gird,” that can only mean we are supposed to ready ourselves for some hard thinking.  

There are too many thought-nuggets in this paragraph to track down in a short devotional. But here are a few.  

 “[S]et all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed” (1 Peter 1:13b). Put hope in the grace that will come when Jesus comes again. It takes a lot of mental energy to sort out the things we can fix or attain in the present from the things that will have to wait for the Lord to fix or bring to us. Tooth decay I can address; my body’s eventual decay I can’t. Proximate justice we can hope for and work towards in society; perfect justice will have to wait. Here’s the Christian hope: all that is wrong now will one day yield to God’s kindness, his benevolence, his unmerited favor. That’s worth thinking hard about.  

“[D]o not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance” (1 Peter 1:14b). Reflecting on the strong desires that used to govern my life, I’m deluding myself if I think I haven’t been dragged around by them. For Peter, that is pretty much how our former lives were conducted. Ashley Null summarizes the guiding theological insight of Archbishop Cranmer, architect of the Book of Common Prayer (I approximate Null’s formulation), “What the heart desires, the will seizes, and the mind rationalizes.” We are desiring creatures before we are thinking agents. We all have things that are all too powerfully alluring to us. For example, potato chips, chocolate, and ice cream can defeat me. The way I (wrongly) eliminate those temptations when I come across them in the kitchen is to consume them! Peter challenges us to intervene with our brains. We do so by exposing as best we can the secret urges that would otherwise govern us all our days. That’s worth thinking hard about.  

“You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors” (1 Peter 2:18). In a similar vein, Peter invites us to reflect on the ways that our upbringing has shaped our sense of right and wrong, truth and falsity. Was our background one of privilege, or not? Were we taught that we were loved and valued, or that we were in the way and that other things matter more? Did we grow up with few friends or many, as an only child or one of many? Did we grow up relating to and valuing all sorts of people, or were we taught to divide the world into “us” versus “them”? Those are things worth thinking hard about.   

“‘All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25but the word of the Lord endures forever.’ That word is the good news that was announced to you” (1 Peter 1:24). My mind needs constantly to be reshaped by the truths that are in the Bible. There’s no way around that fact. My friend, the ever-vigilant Paul Kennedy recently discovered this introduction in his hotel room’s Gideon Bible: “Owned, it is riches; studied, it is wisdom; trusted, it is salvation; loved, it is character; and obeyed, it is power.” That’s worth thinking hard about.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Chosen and Destined - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 11/27/2023 •

Monday of the Twenty-sixth Week After Pentecost (Proper 29) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 106; Joel 3:1–2,9–17; 1 Peter 1:1–12; Matthew 19:1–12 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. This Monday in the Season After Pentecost our readings finds us in Proper 29 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

A friend recently said to me, “I’m living in a state of liminality right now.” 

“What do you mean?” I asked.  

“Well, I guess I mean I feel stuck between two worlds. It’s as though at work and at home, some old things needed to die. But it’s still not clear where life is on the other side. I feel caught in pre-dawn, and I long for daylight. It’s like I’m playing a piece on the piano, and I can’t move past the next to last chord. It’s a 7th chord that keeps going and going. It won’t resolve to that splendid, final 1-chord. I don’t feel like I really belong to my old world, even though I still live in it. But I’m not sure what the new world I seem to be moving into looks like either. I’m caught in this weird transitional place, at home in neither the old nor the new.”  

It so happens that my friend’s plight is every Christian’s plight. We live in a place of transition from death to life, from darkness to light, from turbulence to peace. We live in the liminal, at home neither in the old world any longer nor in the new quite yet.  

Over the course of this week and the next, we will read through the two letters of Peter. Nobody describes the liminal state of the Christian life better than this especially attentive disciple of Jesus.  

Image: "musical fingers" by vl8189 is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

1 Peter: chosen and destined, but also resident aliens. I once heard a preacher explain this letter as a dance between two terms Peter puts together in the very first verse. We are “select strangers” (eklektoi parepidēmoi). We have been “selected” by a sovereign God for “salvation” and “sanctification.” Meanwhile, we are “strangers” to this world, and are called to “submission” and “suffering.” 

That’s the Christian life as Peter unpacks it. That’s the liminality of our existence—yours, mine, and my friend’s.  

What it is to be “select” Peter works out in terms of a “salvation” that God has accomplished for us (1 Peter 1:3–13) and a “sanctification” that God is working in us (1 Peter 1:14–2:10) 

What it is to be “strangers” Peter works out in terms of Christlike “submission” in various relationships (1 Peter 2:11–3:8; 5:1–10) and of Christlike “suffering” in a hostile world (1 Peter 3:9–4:19).  

We don’t entirely belong here, because we are on our way to our homeland. Nonetheless, Peter will instruct us as we move through this first epistle of his that we are called to be good citizens of countries that don’t fully claim us, and faithful family members, even of families that don’t fully “get” us.  

In his opening chapter of this gem of a letter, Peter offers hints as to what gets us through.  

“…even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials…” (1 Peter 1:6). We know that suffering is real, but that it won’t last.   

“…so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:7–8). We know that the testing of our faith through trials only strengthens our faith.  

“In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials … you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy…” (1 Peter 1:6,8b). We know that there is a joy which only faith-under-suffering can produce.    

“Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours made careful search and inquiry, 11 inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory” (1 Peter 1:10–11). We know that we are part of a story that has been unfolding for millennia. It’s the drama of redemption that the Bible narrates from cover to cover. And at its core, it is a glorious tale that draws us into the pageantry of, and into our share in, the sufferings and glory of God’s Messiah, the Savior and Redeemer of the world. Our small bit parts take on gigantic import as they contribute to the glorious tale they help to tell: a tale of the transformation of suffering into triumph, of shame into glory, and of ugliness into beauty.   

Back to my friend. The Christian life, as sketched by Peter, is a lot like a long pre-dawn or an extended 7th chord. What Peter would have us understand is that pre-dawn has its own beautiful, subtle, and promissory hues of light. And a penultimate 7th chord carries exquisite tones of poignant memory and eager expectation. The Christian life is learning to live well in the period between darkness and light, old and new. I pray we find in Peter’s wise words what the hymn writer calls “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.” Great, indeed, is his faithfulness.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Christ in Our Midst Now - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 11/24/2023 •

Friday of the Twenty-fifth Week After Pentecost (Proper 28) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 102; 1 Maccabees 4:36–59; Revelation 22:6–13; Matthew 18:10-20 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday in the Season After Pentecost. We are in Proper 28 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Wrapping up 1 Maccabees and Revelation: 

Jewish people celebrated Hanukkah for the first time in 164 B.C. and continue to celebrate it to this day. Christians take this to be a celebration in advance of the things John recounts for us in the Book of Revelation. At creation, God had intended the whole earth to be a temple for his dwelling among humans. Enter the serpent with his hiss. Enter the pollution of sin and the darkness of evil. A day is coming when this earth will be delivered from dissolution and decay, and God will dwell among his glorified sons and daughters as he originally intended.  

From the day he first showed up in his Father’s house with whip in hand (John 2), Jesus has been working to purify, indeed, to redesign, reconstruct, and redecorate the place for the meeting place between God and us. To the cross Jesus took all the pollution and ugliness and defilement of God’s temple and his creation. Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ temple desecration was but a small part. The truth is, all of us are complicit in the degradation of creation. Jesus took all of it into himself, buried it in his own tomb, and left it there when he rose from the dead. He rose in promise that the day will come when God’s house will be put entirely into order. 

The establishment under Judas Maccabeus of Hanukkah, “the Festival of Lights,” as an annual celebration of the rededication of Ezra-Nehemiah’s temple is a happy reminder to us that it is important to set aside seasons of praise to celebrate the moments we become aware of God’s redemptive interventions in our lives—when he raises us up from a sickbed, when he blesses us with a new child or job or relationship, when he grants us a new realization of his grace and forgiveness. More deeply, though, it is a happy reminder of his commitment, in his own time, to make all things new. He’s promised, and he will come through.  

Meanwhile, in verses that the daily lectionary mystifyingly leaves out, John gives us the Bible’s final imperatives, the Bible’s final exhortations and invitations:  

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ 
And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’ 
And let everyone who is thirsty come. 
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift” (Revelation 22:17).  

Fittingly, as I once heard theologian Leonard Sweet observe, the Bible begins by telling us to “eat” (Genesis 2:16) and it ends by telling us to “drink” (Revelation 22::17b). The Bible is a book of life, because it is God who gives life and health and well-being.  

Matthew: the presence of Christ in our midst in the now. Christ came to be an “advance” on God’s dwelling on the earth with his people in the hereafter. He is, as Matthew has already told us, “Immanuel which means God with us” (Matthew 1:23). It is incumbent upon us, therefore, to conduct ourselves with a circumspection and care corresponding to that reality.  

First, we don’t just let each other drift away: “If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray…” (Matthew 18:12–14). In my first job out of seminary, I was put in charge of that congregation’s “straying sheep.” Lunch appointment after lunch appointment provided sobering lessons in the disappointment of congregants who felt their church promised more than it delivered. I learned that listening to concerns and apologizing when necessary resulted in a grace of reconciliation.  

Second, we are called to keep a vigilant eye to predation in the congregation: “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault…” (Matthew 18:15–19). Grace can be mistaken for permissiveness. The Lord’s sheep can be mistreated; old ones, widows, and young ones can be taken advantage of. In the name of Christ, the church works hard to protect the innocent.  

Third, may we never outgrow our wonder at the fact that the one whom we will one day see seated as “the Alpha and the Omega” (Revelation 22:12) is already among us whenever we gather: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20). He is present among us in “the little ones;” among us in the Prayers and Praises; among us in the Proclamation of the Word; among us at the Passing of the Peace; among us in the Bread and the Wine—and then among us as we “go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19–20).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

God’s New City - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 11/23/2023 •
Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week After Pentecost (Proper 28) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105; 1 Maccabees 4:1–25; Revelation 21:22–22:5; Matthew 18:1–9 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. On this Thursday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 28 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

1 Maccabees: continuing God’s victory. Today is the next to last day of our brief introduction to the intertestamental book of 1 Maccabees. Fittingly, the Daily Office commends the reading/singing of “The Song of Moses” following the reading of today’s passage, 1 Maccabees 4:1–25. In this reading, Judas Maccabeus couches his hard-won triumph in terms that recall the victory of the people of God under Moses over Pharaoh and his army: “Remember how our ancestors were saved at the Red Sea, when Pharaoh with his forces pursued them” (1 Maccabees 4:9). Judas Maccabeus sees the Israel of his day carrying forward the great story of God delivering his people, and so he leads them in the psalmist’s refrain, “For he is good. for his mercy endures forever” (1 Maccabees 4:24; see Psalm 136, throughout).  

Image: Hannah Cohoon - made in 1845, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

Revelation: God’s new city. Today also happens to be the next to last day of our survey of Revelation, a peek into the final chapter of God’s grand story of reclamation, redemption, and renewal. Symbolic details flesh out what it is for God finally to dwell among us: God himself (the incarnate God-Man) is the temple. Thus, the new city that has come down from heaven has no temple in it. God’s very presence provides all the light anybody needs, so there’s no need of sun or moon. With all enemies vanquished, city gates will never need to be closed. Access to “the tree of life” that had been denied at the Fall in the Garden of Eden is opened in this new Edenic city. A “river of the water of life,” flows through it, nourishing trees that bear leaves “for the healing of the nations.” Where curse had ruled for millennia, now there’s life and health and peace.  

Personal benefits that John lists, well, honestly, they outstrip my capacity to imagine them. What does it mean to “see the face” of the invisible God, unless, perhaps John means we see his image bearer, Jesus Christ, God-incarnate (Revelation 22:4)? God’s name on our foreheads (Revelation 7:3; 14:1; by way of contrast, see 13:16;17:5) means we will have been forever claimed as God’s cherished possession. And the notion that we will “reign forever and ever” can only mean that life in the new Jerusalem will not be static; in a vast universe emerging from the cloud of dissolution and decay, we will have dominions to explore and tasks that renew the mandate to our original parents to “subdue … and have dominion” (Genesis 1:28).   

Matthew: readiness for life in the city of God. In Matthew 18, Jesus elegantly lays out the path to preparedness for life in the new Jerusalem. To “see God” in the new Jerusalem when it comes, we must see the face of Christ in the little children now. “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me” (Matthew 18:5).  

To prepare ourselves to bear the name that declares his permanent proprietorship on our brow, we monitor our lives in the now, looking to purge our hearts of desires that would take us where errant eyes or feet or hands would otherwise take us: “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble…” (Matthew 18:8–10). We exercise equally diligent care in preparing ourselves to live in a place where “nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood” (Revelation 21:27). Readying ourselves, in other words from Revelation 21, to “bring into it the glory and honor of the nations”—specifically, offering ourselves as living sacrifices.  

It follows, then, that to ready ourselves for whatever dominion is ours in the hereafter, we must learn to rule ourselves in the here and now. We learn that the school of greatness is the school of lowliness: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3–4).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+

From Shadow to Reality - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 11/22/2023 •
Wednesday of the Twenty-fifth Week After Pentecost (Proper 28) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 101; Psalm 109; 1 Maccabees 3:42–60; Revelation 21:9–21; Matthew 17:22–27 

Further thoughts on Revelation 21:9–21 from 11/23/2020 at https://tinyurl.com/e4xt5xzy 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This Wednesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 28 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

The juxtaposition of 1 Maccabees and Revelation. In 1 Maccabees, Judas Maccabeus piously and passionately prepares to preserve and purify Jerusalem and its sanctuary. Throughout the waxing and waning of Israel’s fortunes, its people see themselves as stewards of a sacred treasure. In Revelation, John is shown, by contrast, a heavenly Jerusalem, “the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21:10b). From the perspective of the early leaders of the Christian church, the earthly Jerusalem and the physical temple (built by Solomon, rebuilt by Ezra-Nehemiah, reclaimed by Judas Maccabeus, and expanded by Herod the Great) are “shadows” that must eventually give way to “reality.” That reality is the heavenly Jerusalem, “the bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Revelation 21:10a).  

The perspective that God would have John communicate to us is that through all the tribulation, the strife, and the turmoil in the church’s experience here “below,” there is being prepared for her a glorious ending. Indeed, as blemished as the church itself can be, God is working to beautify her and prepare her for her wedding day. We will eventually hear the Lord commending her for her “righteous deeds” (Revelation 19:8). As confused and as error-prone as the church’s own stewards seem to be, the Lord is building her according to his own design, out of valuable materials, with perfect symmetry, and at an unimaginably huge scale. That is the encouragement John receives in the vision of a city with gates named after the twelve tribes of Israel, and foundations named after the twelve apostles (Revelation 21:12–14). All are built with fantastic proportions and measurements (Revelation 21:15–17), and are constructed using precious stones for building materials (Revelation 21:18–21).   

Matthew: Jesus and the temple tax. In his relationship with his lead disciple Simon Peter, Jesus shows how the Good Shepherd (John 10) cares for a shepherd-in-training.  

What whiplash Simon Peter has been experiencing in our last couple of days of readings in Matthew! He is given the “keys to the Kingdom” for recognizing Jesus as Messiah; then he’s rebuked as a “Satan” for questioning Messiah’s plan to carry out his mission via death and resurrection. In the Transfiguration of the Lord Jesus, Peter is treated to a vision of the future of humankind’s glorification.  His bumbling attempt to memorialize the experience gets unceremoniously shut down by a bright cloud of theophany (God’s presence).  

Along with the other disciples, Peter is chided for not having enough faith to perform miracles. The next thing he and the disciples know, Jesus is talking again about the death and resurrection of the Son of Man. Understandably, “they became greatly distressed” (Matthew 17:23b).  

With all this to sort out in his heart and his head, Peter gets accosted by the local “revenue service”: “Your teacher does pay the temple tax, doesn’t he?” (Matthew 17:24 my translation). In the law of Moses (Exodus 30:11–16), every male twenty years old and up was required to pay the tax “for the service of the tent of meeting; before the Lord it will be a reminder to the Israelites of the ransom given for your lives” (Exodus 30:16). Peter answers, “Yes.”  

Rather than take us into the swirl of thoughts in Peter’s head, Matthew notes instead that before Peter can say a word in reporting the encounter, Jesus takes him aside for a private moment. Jesus reminds Peter of two simple truths:  

Jesus still is Messiah. “From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?” When Peter said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the children are free” (Matthew 17:25b–26). Despite all the hard news about his upcoming sufferings, Jesus affirms that he is “greater than the temple” (Matthew 12:6). Peter’s faith in him as Son of God and Messiah is not in vain. Jesus assures Peter that he (Jesus) is, indeed, Son of God and, as the writer to the Hebrews is later to write, Lord over the house (Hebrews 3:6).  

Meanwhile, things that are temporary and provisional are still worth taking care of. Though the Jerusalem temple is but a “shadow” destined to give way to “reality” when Jesus establishes a new temple made of “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5), he and Peter can give due honor to the earthly temple while it is still standing. “However, so that we do not give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook; take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a coin; take that and give it to them for you and me” (Matthew 17:27). Sometimes, because we know “the rest of the story,” we can make concessions to provisional, temporary, and even seemingly trivial constraints.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

All Things New - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 11/21/2023 •
Tuesday of the Twenty-fifth Week After Pentecost (Proper 28) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; 1 Maccabees 3:25–41; Revelation 21:1–8; Matthew 17:14–21  

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)  

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This Tuesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 28 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

To me, one of the most memorable moments of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ occurs when Jesus stumbles while carrying his cross to Calvary. Gibson imagines Jesus’s mother coming to help him up, as he utters these words from Revelation 21:7: “I make all things new.” Not exact history, but perfect theology. Each of today’s passages brings its own reminder that things are horribly wrong in our world and in our lives. Our best attempts to address them are partial, ambiguous, and temporary at best. There’s a need for a massive “reset.”  

Image: Seedling, Matthew Fang, Creative Commons 2.0 

1 Maccabees. After Mattathias’s death, his son Judas emerges as the leader of the Jewish rebellion against Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Hellenist imperialists. For his military prowess and for his success in freeing Jerusalem from pagan control, Judas earns the nickname “Maccabeus,” which means “Hammer.” In early campaigns, he defeats Antiochus’s generals. Israel has a hero. Antiochus despairs of making Israel over into a showcase of Hellenistic enlightenment. He orders the annihilation of the Jewish population. We know that Antiochus will fail, that Judas Maccabeus will win, and that he and his fellow Israelites will rededicate their temple.  

But we also know the story continues: the Herodian dynasty will, in its own opulent way, fatally pollute the temple and the Romans will finally level it. Into our own time Jewish people endure pogroms and “final solutions.” Around the world and across time, other people groups too undergo oppression and campaigns of ethnic cleansing: from the 2nd century BC’s Carthagians to today’s Uyghurs and Tigrayans. It will not end until Christ is seated, as Revelation 21 depicts him, and declares “I make all things new.” Even so, we believe it is the cross and resurrection that have already secured that final renewal.  

Matthew. Jesus comes to take our diseases to the cross: “He took our weaknesses and carried our diseases” (Matthew 8:17, quoting Isaiah 53:4). Further, he gives his immediate circle of disciples healing powers like his—if only they will believe. Over the long haul of the church’s life, evidence of direct healing powers like those is muted. Since then, the “mustard seed” faith Jesus planted among his disciples has produced a sequoia-size tree of faith in the power of Christ to inspire compassion for the sick and to develop all sorts of healing ministries. Christians take medicine into the most disease-ridden places on the planet. They spawn networks of hospitals given, as the motto of one such network puts it, to “being the healing hands of Jesus.” Christians who have found a measure of Christ’s emotional and relational healing in the ministration of competent counselors and therapists seek out training so they can be “as Christ” to others. In the now, Christ “makes all things new” in ways that mostly are indirect, incomplete, and anticipatory of final healing.  

Revelation 21 promises that one day that complete “reset” will take place. All things will be made finally and completely new: 

God himself will be with them;  
he will wipe every tear from their eyes. 
Death will be no more; 
mourning and crying and pain will be no more, 
for the first things have passed away (Revelation 21:3d–4). 

Meanwhile, we wait, we work, and we pray this Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and ordination prayer:  

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen (BCP, pp. 280, 291, 515, 528, 540) 

And, perhaps, with Big Daddy Weave, we sing, “All Things New”  

From the ashes, from the dust, 
I will rise up, rise up. 
Out of darkness into the light 
I will rise up, rise up. 

You make all things new, 
You make all things new. 
God of mercy and love, 
Do what only You can do,  
And make all things… 
All things…  
You make all things new. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Lord God Omnipotent Reigns! - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 11/20/2023 •

Monday of the Twenty-fifth Week After Pentecost (Proper 28) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89; 1 Maccabees 3:1–24; Revelation 20:7–15; Matthew 17:1–13 

More on Revelation 20:1–10 from 12/21/2020 at https://tinyurl.com/ykprytyz 

More on Revelation 20:11–21:8 from 12/22/2020 at https://tinyurl.com/w98nee47 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. This Monday in the Season After Pentecost our readings finds us in Proper 28 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Revelation. The first half of Revelation 20 (Saturday’s reading) is one of the most debated passages in the New Testament. I share my considered conclusions, and they are based largely on two observations. The first has to do with the image of “binding Satan,” the second is prompted by John’s explanation that the binding has the effect that Satan “would deceive the nations no more” for a thousand years.  

Binding. Over time as I’ve wrestled with the New Testament as a whole, I’ve come to see the “binding” (and the throwing of Satan into a pit, locking him in it, and sealing it over him) as a way of describing what Christ accomplished during his earthly ministry. Jesus, in fact, specifically says he has the power to exorcise demons because he has first “bound” the strong man: “But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.” (Mark 3:27 ESV). That “binding” began when Jesus defeated the tempter in the wilderness (Matthew 4; Luke 4). Miracle after miracle following that wilderness encounter demonstrated the loosening of Satan’s grip on people’s lives. On the cross, Jesus broke the back of Satan’s power. No longer was the devil able to condemn; no longer was death a fear to those who trust Christ.  

What John calls “binding, throwing, locking, and sealing,” the apostle Paul calls “erasing, setting aside, nailing to the cross, disarming, making a public example, and triumphing over.” Paul describes the dynamic of Christ “erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:14–15). The writer to the Hebrews says that this breaking of Satan’s power over sinners is why Jesus became a man: “…so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14b–15).  

1,000 years of gospel progress. The thousand years of that “binding,” I believe, symbolize the entire era in which the gospel goes to the nations. In John’s vision the binding has one purpose: to prevent Satan from keeping people from hearing that good news and bending the knee to King Jesus. This era is at one and the same time a “short” period of suffering and persecution for the church (the three and a half years of Revelation 11:2,3; 12:6; 13:5), and it is also a “long” period of the church seeing countless numbers of people being, as Jesus put it to Paul, turned “from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18). It’s a season in which sinners enslaved by evil are “rescued…from the power of darkness and transferred…into the kingdom of his beloved Son,  in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13b–14).  

Satan’s last power grab. The sobering thing is that before heaven and earth become one, and before all evil is vanquished for good, there lies ahead one last conflagration. Shortly before Christ returns, Satan will be let loose to do his worst: “When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations…” (Revelation 20:7–8a). The parallel passages in Revelation (especially 6:12–17; 11:5–18; 14:14–20; 16:14–21; 19:19–21) suggest the horrific nature of those events to come. Satan, the personification of evil, will mount one last battle against the Church (all these passages are referring to that battle: 16:14; 19:19; 20:8). Even leashed as he is now, Peter likens him to a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8). We know he is mortally wounded; and when he is unleashed, his desperate raging promises to be terrible.  

The good news is that with one blast of his mouth, Jesus will end the battle at his glorious return: “From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations … the rest were killed by the sword of the rider on the horse, the sword that came from his mouth” (Revelation 19:16,21). The unholy trinity of Beast, Antichrist, and false prophet go into “the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:10). From his “great white throne” God will bring justice to an earth that has been morally askew since the Garden of Eden. Resurrection, the settling of all accounts, and the making new of all things will follow directly. Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

An Eternal Redemption - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 11/17/2023 •
Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 27) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; 1 Maccabees 1:41–63; Revelation 19:11–16; Matthew 16:13–20 

From Saturday’s readings: 1 Maccabees 2:1–28; and Sunday’s: 1 Maccabees 2:29–43,49–50 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday in the Season After Pentecost. We are in Proper 27 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

1 Maccabees: Mattathias resists a faux unity. “Then the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, and that all should give up their particular customs” (1 Maccabees 1:41–42). Antiochus IV Epiphanes manifests the Hellenistic aspiration for a united human race. However, it is unity on Hellenists’ terms: their language, their customs, their institutions, their philosophy, their worship, their hegemony. The forcible “civilization” of Jews required the destruction of Jewish culture: no offerings in the temple, no sabbath-keeping, no circumcision, no reading of the Torah. Instead, Antiochus imposed the sacrifice of swine on pagan altars in the land. He executed  families that practiced circumcision, forced the Jews to eat unclean foods, burned the Torah scrolls, and decreed a “desolating sacrilege on the altar of burnt offering” (likely an image of Olympian Zeus).  

The “enlightenment” being imposed—as is often the case—is brutal. Predictably, the reaction within the Jewish population is mixed. “Many even from Israel gladly adopted his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath” (1 Maccabees 1:43). At the same time, “many in Israel stood firm and were resolved in their hearts not to eat unclean food. They chose to die rather than to be defiled by food or to profane the holy covenant; and they did die” (1 Maccabees 1:62–63).  

In protest of the ruinous paganization of the holy city, Mattathias ben Johanan, a priest, moves with his family of five sons to his hometown Modein, some 19 miles west of Jerusalem. When the king’s officers show up to impose the apostasy there in the hinterlands, Mattathias responds with the zeal of Phinehas (see Numbers 25:7–11). He slays both a Jew being forced to offer a pagan sacrifice and the king’s officer who is forcing the sacrifice (1 Maccabees 2:25–26).  

Mattathias and his family and followers then flee into the wilderness. There they refuse to defend themselves when troops from Jerusalem attack them on a sabbath. After a thousand of their company are massacred, the survivors vow to fight on the sabbath if necessary: “Let us fight against anyone who comes to attack us on the sabbath day; let us not all die as our kindred died in their hiding places” (1 Maccabees 2:41). An army of resistance gathers around Mattathias in the wilderness, and as the day of his death (apparently of natural causes) approaches, he urges his sons to continue the resistance: “Arrogance and scorn have now become strong; it is a time of ruin and furious anger. Now, my children, show zeal for the law, and give your lives for the covenant of our ancestors” (1 Maccabees 2:49–50).  

Revelation: John sees the rider on the white horse. At least in some way, Mattathias prefigures the great Christus Victor who fights a final battle to defeat his people’s enemies, freeing them from the pollution of idolatry and all that defiles and destroys life.  

“Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war” (Revelation 19:11). In my (and others’) understanding of the structure of the Book of Revelation, this vision forms a wonderful inclusio with John’s first vision of a conquering rider on a white horse (Revelation 6:2).  

In Revelation 6:2, the rider on the white horse depicts Jesus in his earthly ministry, winning an eternal redemption for his people. Here in Revelation 19, Jesus reappears in his full glory to win ultimate victory. With finality, the one whose name is “Faithful” and “True” returns to fight one last battle (spoken of at Revelation 16:14; 19:19; 20:8). In this battle, he will put down the vast army of unregenerate humanity and the mock trinity of evil: Satan the Dragon (Revelation 20:7–15), the Antichrist Beast (Revelation 19:19–20a), and the lying spirit who animates the deceitful prophet and the rebellious kings of the earth (Revelation 16:12–21; 19:17–21).  

While many of the details of the Book of Revelation are elusive, and promise to remain so until Christ returns in power and glory, there is one matter that is not elusive at all. As is often said, the way to handle the Book of Revelation is to approach it with this philosophy: “We’ve read the end of the book, and we win!” And we win because, and only because, of the figure who stands at its center, the rider on the white horse who “is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war” (Revelation 19:11). 

Matthew: Peter recognizes the Messiah. For all his confusion about everything else, Simon Peter gets this one thing right in the singular most important conversation in all of Jesus’s earthly ministry. When Jesus asks the disciples, “But who do you say that I am,” Peter speaks up with the correct, the decisively correct, answer, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Peter has much to learn about what that means, but he’s on the right track. Same for us. We have a lot to learn about how the details of history and our lives will play out. But there’s only one thing we really need to know to get there: Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God … Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.” He will set all to rights.  

Be blessed in the wonder of that knowledge this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

“Hallelujah” and the Bride of Christ - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 11/16/2023 •
Thursday of the Twenty-fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 27) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 34; 1 Maccabees 1:1-28; Revelation 19:1–10; Matthew 16:1–12 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. On this Thursday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 27 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Revelation 19. Many people are surprised to discover that the word “Hallelujah!” (which means “Praise Yah!”) does not occur in the New Testament until Revelation 19. All four incidences of the word in the New Testament lie here in this chapter—nowhere else. Neither the angels nor the shepherds use it at Jesus’s birth. The disciples don’t use it at Jesus’s resurrection or at Pentecost. Peter and Paul don’t use it at the Gentiles’ acceptance of the gospel.  

It’s as though the Holy Spirit were holding the term back to signal the events of this special moment: the downfall of the whore of Babylon at the end of time, and the simultaneous elevation of the Bride of Christ.  

Throughout the New Testament, “Hallelujah” awaits the demise of the “City of Man,” because “Hallelujah” depends upon the destruction of humanity’s seduction by sin.  

“Hallelujah! 
Salvation and glory and power to our God, 
2     for his judgments are true and just; 
he has judged the great whore 
    who corrupted the earth with her fornication, 
and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants” (Revelation 19:1b–2). 

Throughout the New Testament, “Hallelujah” awaits the bringing forth of the “City of God” like a radiant bride. “Hallelujah” depends upon Christ’s bride being freed from external persecution, purged of internal division and error, and forever united in marriage to Christ her Groom.  

“Hallelujah! 
For the Lord our God 
    the Almighty reigns. 
7 Let us rejoice and exult 
    and give him the glory, 
for the marriage of the Lamb has come, 
    and his bride has made herself ready; 
8 to her it has been granted to be clothed 
    with fine linen, bright and pure”— 

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints (Revelation 19:6b–8).  

The only response to the glory of this picture I can think of is the words of the hymn writer: “And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll.…”  

1 Maccabees: introductory thoughts. In just over two weeks, we begin the season of Advent, a time of “leaning in” to hope. It is, first, hope realized, for Jesus has already come in humility. It is, second, hope yet-to-be-realized, for Jesus will come a second time in power and great glory.   

In preparation for that season, the daily lectionary takes us on a tour of the events that led to the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, the rededication of Ezra and Nehemiah’s temple following its desecration by pagans in the middle of the 2nd century B.C. The inter-testamental Book of 1 Maccabees recounts how the successors of Alexander the Great sought to undermine Israel’s mission of being a people set apart to the service of the Lord. And it’s the story of how Jews faithful to God’s covenant successfully resisted. It’s impossible to understand the climate of the times of John the Baptist’s emergence to call for a new exodus and rescue from slavery without understanding how these Jews of a previous generation had also looked to God for deliverance.  

Jesus will eschew the violent sort of resistance to oppression that the heroes of 1 Maccabees mounted, but his zeal more than matches theirs. And it is not difficult to see in 1 Maccabees the kind of expectations that contemporaries of Jesus pinned on him. They hoped he would recreate against the Romans a military campaign similar to the one Judas Maccabeus had mounted against the Greek defilers of Jerusalem and the temple.  

Matthew: Jesus always offers a third way. Just like everybody else, Jesus’s disciples play the short game. They think Jesus feeds the multitudes because he’s interested in bread for the masses. Jesus had already settled that question in the wilderness with Satan: “Man does not live by bread alone….” Instead, Jesus offers a bread that feeds the soul and remakes lives.  

When his disciples panic because they’ve forgotten to bring food for a journey, he reminds them that they ought to know from his feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000, that he’s perfectly able to take care of a lack of bread. But then, in what must have led to their even greater astonishment, he warns them of the “bread of the Pharisees” and the “bread of the Sadducees.” What he means, I think, is that the “bread” the Pharisees serve (similar to the Maccabean separatists) will not satisfy; nor will the “bread” the Sadducees offer (similar to the Maccabean assimilationists).  

Jesus is the third way between separation and accommodation. Jesus came to be the Temple, the place where God dwells with his people. He did not come to purify a building. He came to purify a people. He came in “tenting” fashion at first, a frail newborn, but later fully capable of dying for sinners. He will come again in his glorified state, to be “God-with-us” permanently. And the Bread he offers is his own life for the world.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Interpreting the Word of God - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 11/15/2023 •
Wednesday of the Twenty-fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 27) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:97–120; Nehemiah 7:73b-8:18; Revelation 18:21–24; Matthew 15:29-39 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This Wednesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 27 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Dimensions of worship. The daily lectionary’s three-week-long exploration of reform under Nehemiah as governor and Ezra as priest and scribe closes today with a snapshot of people at worship. Though there are several important features of worship in this passage, I found myself making notes on the reading and interpreting of Scripture in worship (on another occasion, perhaps we can explore other dimensions of worship in this passage, like congregational participation, the nature of historically informed sacred actions, and provision for the needy).  

Reading the Word of God. “[T[he priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly … He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday … and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law” (Nehemiah 8:3b). He may have read for what? four to six hours?!  

After Ezra and Nehemiah’s day, the practice of lengthy Scripture reading carried over into Jewish synagogue practice. I love the way the Christian church in second century Rome took their cue from this prioritizing of Scripture reading: “And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits…” (Justin Martyr, First Apology 67). There are many ways in which countless churches around the world honor this principle today—they gather to take in the story. However, sadly, many churches, even churches that vigorously defend the authority of the Bible, seldom actually read much of the Bible in worship. I wish churches in the latter camp would reconsider. I love the fact that the Sunday readings in the church I now serve consist of (often quite generous) portions of the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Epistles, and the Gospels … and that we stand for the Gospel.  

Interpreting the Word of God. As we are all acutely aware, everything in the Bible is subject to interpretation. It’s never really been as simple as, “The Bible said it, I believe it, that settles it.” Godly and competent and wise interpretation has been necessary from Day One. As Ezra reads, he is flanked by thirteen priests who along with thirteen Levites “helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places. So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading” (Nehemiah 8:7b–8).  

Again, the early church learned from Jewish practice that preaching and teaching were necessary to explain the text and to help us figure out its meaning for our lives. Here’s Justin Martyr’s explanation of what kind of preaching would follow the reading of the memoirs of the apostles and the prophets in the second century Roman church: “…then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things” (First Apology 67). The church didn’t gather to take their marching orders from a self-proclaimed policy wonk with a divinity degree, nor from a community organizer with a collar. They didn’t come from far and wide to find secrets to narcissistic self-actualization from a self-help sage with a stole. The ancient church knew, as Ezra and Nehemiah knew, that what people longed for was help to inhabit and orient their lives around the story being told, around the vision being painted, around the song being sung … in the Scripture being read. 

Take aways: read and interpret.  Our new drama troupe at the Cathedral Church of St Luke recently presented Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. Those familiar with Marlowe’s rendering of the classical Faust story know that in the end Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus’s belief is that God is all power and no love, all justice and no mercy. And so, while Faustus can imagine how “one drop” of Jesus’s blood, even “a half a drop” of his blood could save him, he just.can’t.bring.himself.to.ask! As one character chastises him: “… miserable man, That from thy soul exclud’st the grace of heaven.”  

Early in the play, Marlowe offers two factors that contribute to Faustus’s self-damnation.  

“Read, read the Scriptures…” Faustus finds enchantment in magic, but he can’t find the enchantment of the story that Scripture tells. A “Good Angel” exhorts him, to no avail, to put away the blasphemous books that enthrall him, and give the Bible a chance to re-engage his imagination. “Read, read the Scriptures … that [book of magic] is blasphemy!” But Faustus has decided he knows everything the Bible could possibly teach him, and is ready to move “beyond” it to magic and necromancy. But as we shall see, he’s only read the Scriptures partially, and badly at that.  

Interpret well, or things won’t go well. As he contemplates making a deal with the devil for his soul, Faustus recalls what he’s learned from the Bible. He remembers the first half of Romans 6:23, “The reward of sin is death….” The best he can conclude from this verselet is: “That is hard.” He can’t bring himself to recall the second half of the verse: “…but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  

Faustus then recalls 1 John 1:8, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there’s no truth in us,” from which he infers that the Bible’s message is death and condemnation: “Che serà, serà. What will be shall be? Divinity, adieu!” Once again, Faustus reads only partially, and badly. He forgets that 1 John 1: 8 is the setup to 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  

I pray that unlike “accursed Faustus, miserable man,” and instead like the joyfully redeemed children of the generation of Ezra and Nehemiah, like the second century Christians of Rome, and like countless believers around the world today, we read the Scripture and read it well. May we find in God’s Word not confused ideas about God, a disenchanted picture of reality, and condemnation of our souls, but rather a robust view of God, a re-enchanted world, and abundant mercy for our souls through Jesus Christ our Lord.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Even the Dogs Get to Eat the Crumbs that Fall Off the Table - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 11/14/2023 •
Tuesday of the Twenty-fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 27) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 78:1–39; Nehemiah 9:26–38; Revelation 18:9–20; Matthew 15:21–28 

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)  

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This Tuesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 27 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Nehemiah: back in the land but still in Egypt. At Advent, we hear again John the Baptist quoting Isaiah in the wilderness: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3). We take these words for granted, I think. Instead, we should be bowled over by them! When Isaiah forecasts God’s people’s exile for their sin, he characterizes that exile as a slavery just like that from Egypt under Moses, perhaps a millennium before his time. The Babylonian exile, says Isaiah, will require a second exodus. With his “Prepare the way of the Lord,” Isaiah offers hope for that second deliverance from slavery.  

John the Baptist’s premise is that his listeners are in the same position: in slavery in exile in a “Babylon” or an “Egypt,” and in need of rescue. Physically, they are in the Promised Land; and despite Roman occupation, there is no small level of prosperity and ease (at least for some) thanks to the expansive architectural ambitions and political finesse of the Herod dynasty. And yet, John the Baptist knows that his listeners understand they are still in an exile, still in need of a desert highway to home. His message strikes such a chord with people that they flock to him in the wilderness to receive his baptism of repentance in preparation for a new exodus.  

What is extraordinary about today’s reading in Nehemiah is the confession that the generation of Ezra and Nehemiah make: “Here we are, slaves to this day—slaves in the land that you gave to our ancestors to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts” (Nehemiah 9:36). Newly returned from the Babylonian exile Isaiah had predicted, newly “second exodus-ized” just as Isaiah had promised, they nonetheless confess themselves still to be in exile, in slavery, in need of the kind of exodus that four centuries later John the Baptist will announce.  

The response that Ezra and Nehemiah lead is worthy of note: there is deep confession, and a covenanting together of the people to renew their love for the God of forgiveness and redemption: “[W]e make a firm agreement in writing, and on that sealed document are inscribed the names of our officials, our Levites, and our priests” (Nehemiah 9:38).  

Image: Ilyas Basim Khuri Bazzi Rahib , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons;  

This folio from Walters manuscript W.592 contains an illustration of Jesus and the Canaanite woman. Date: 1684.  
1931: bequeathed to Walters Art Museum by Henry Walters 

Matthew: a moment of pregnant silence. As we saw in the first half of Matthew 15, Jesus maintains that the things that make us “unclean” do not come from outside us, but from inside us. What defiles us is not external dirt, but internal sin. The implication is that once the inside of a person has been made clean, that is, once a sinner has been made right, they are clean indeed.  

Now, in the second half of Matthew 15, Jesus launches a mission into territories inhabited by “unclean” people, Gentile “dogs.” First, he brings his disciples west to the land of classical Phoenicia. Following this leg of the journey, he will take them east across the River Jordan into the Decapolis, the land of classical Syria.  

What’s he doing? Jesus is showing how God plans to work among Gentiles to make sinners into saints. Jesus is demonstrating how faith in the gospel will transform the “unclean” into “clean.” He’s preparing his disciples for the day when he will send them to make disciples of all nations, a mission that has already been foreshadowed in the coming of “wise men from the East” to worship him in infancy (Matthew 2 and 28).  

I think that the reading of today’s account of the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21–28), requires attention to two things: 1) the fact that Jesus has brought his disciples into pagan territory right after teaching that “uncleanness” lies within the human heart; and 2) a pregnant silence. Let’s keep reading. 

The only person we meet here on the coast of the Mediterranean is a woman of “the district of Tyre and Sidon” (Matthew 15:21). King Solomon had made a matrimonial alliance with the Sidonians, bringing idolatry into Israel (1Kings 11:1,33). King Ahab’s wife Jezebel, devotee of Baal and persecutor of the prophets, was a Sidonian princess (1 Kings 16:31). At the same time, the prophet Elijah had sojourned with a Sidonian widow and raised her son from the dead (1 Kings 17:9–24). In today’s reading, this pagan woman calls out to Jesus, “Lord, Son of David” (Matthew 15:22). Regardless of whatever influences are in her past, somehow she recognizes Jesus as Israel’s Messiah; and, not only that, but as the only hope that her daughter might be rid of a demon that has possessed her. This pagan woman asks Israel’s Messiah for mercy. Hers is a remarkable confession, a lightning bolt out of the blue.  

Jesus’s response is astounding. He says nothing: “But he did not answer her at all” (Matthew 15:23a). What’s he doing? He’s going to let his disciples make the next move. Do they understand? Do they “get it” that he has brought them over here to show them that any and every person can be made “clean” by faith in Messiah.  

What do they do? They say, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us” (Matthew 15:23b). To them, she’s an inconvenience and irritation. And so, Jesus, in full sarcastic mode, says (if I may paraphrase), “Well, gentlemen, you’re right. I have no idea what we’re doing over here. I only came for the lost tribes of Israel. Forget the fact that I brought you out of Israel over here into pagan territory” (Matthew 15:24). What’s going on in this conversation? She gets it, and presses in: “Lord, help me!” You can almost see the two of them make eye contact and smile. He says, “Surely you don’t expect me to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs.” (In my head, I see, the “air quotes” he puts around “dogs,” a horrible term of disparagement that “clean” Jews used for “unclean” Gentiles.) She presses further in: “Well, look, even the dogs get to eat of the crumbs that fall off the table.” It’s as though she can see the smile in his eyes and hear the playfulness in his voice. He sees the smile in her eyes, and he lauds her faith. “Then Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.’ And her daughter was healed at that moment” (Matthew 15:28). 

Takeaways. When we are trapped in prisons of sin, addiction, bad habits, and patterns of hurtful relationships, may we have the courage and honesty of the generation of Ezra and Nehemiah (as well as of those who came to John the Baptist). May we confess our imprisonment and ask for a new exodus.  

No matter your background, no matter your “Babylon” or “Egypt,” no matter what demon oppresses you or what temptation tempts you, I pray you know that Jesus the Son of David has the power to heal and to make you “clean” … and the mercy to will it so.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+