Two Journeys, Different Goals - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 10/15/2024 •
Proper 23 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 5; Psalm 6; Jonah 1;1-17; Acts 26:24-27:8; Luke 8:40-56 

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)

We take a three-day journey now with the prophet Jonah. It so happens that this reading overlaps with the reading of those chapters in Acts that recount the apostle Paul’s voyage to Rome. Reading the prophet Jonah’s oceanic misadventures side by side with the apostle Paul’s oceanic adventures makes for intriguing comparisons. Two servants of the Word of God make westward sea journeys: Jonah towards Tarshish (believed to be near modern day Spain), and Paul towards Rome. One flees God’s call to bless the nations. The other pursues God’s call to bless the nations.  

Jonah. According to 2 Kings, the prophet Jonah lives during the zenith of the Northern Kingdom. In 2 Kings 14:25-28, Jonah ministers for at least part of the 41-year reign of Jeroboam II (786–746 B.C.). Scripture judges Jeroboam II spiritually to be one of the worst of Israel’s kings: “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord.” Nonetheless, God used him to expand Israel’s borders both to the north (Lebo Hamath) and to the south (Sea of the Arabah = Dead Sea), and to protect, even “save,” Israel through military victories over the Syrians (14:25,28).  

The message of the book of Jonah is that God is not interested in prospering and protecting his people so they can keep his goodness to themselves. God’s call to Abram in Genesis 12 included the promise that Abram and his family would be a blessing to the nations. Ever since, the Hebrew people have been on mission to take God’s good intentions to the world—even to a hostile world.  

The time of Jonah’s ministry (which also happened to be when Amos and Hosea were inveighing against Israel’s moral decay and religious infidelity) was a time of intense patriotism, smug materialism, and ugly xenophobia in Israel. Augmenting Amos’s and Hosea’s messages, God challenges Israel’s self-absorption and self-protection by reminding her of his love for the surrounding nations. What better way of doing so than by sending a prophet, Jonah, to Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria, the biggest power—and therefore the greatest political threat to Israel—in the Ancient Near East?  

Jonah understood fully what God was up to, and said, “Nope! Not having it!!” Jonah attempted to travel as far from Nineveh as possible, to Tarshish, at the western end of the Mediterranean. 

God will change his heart. The belly of a large fish initiates Jonah’s own “Damascus Road Experience,” the beginning of his lesson about God’s love for all people.  

Acts. It’s quite a different experience to read about the apostle Paul’s resolve to get himself to the capital city of the then-known world’s dominant city—Rome—and there to proclaim God’s “good news” of God’s saving love: “the power of God for salvation” for Jew and Gentile alike (see Romans 1:16-17).  

Before Paul’s journey from the shores of Israel, he has opportunity to share that good news with the great-grandson of the very Herod the Great who had tried to assassinate Baby Jesus (see Matthew 2). In a remarkable scene, set in the (even to this day) gorgeous theatre-by-the-sea at Caesarea-by-the-Sea, Paul gives his final account of his Damascus Road Experience—his call from being persecutor of the faith to becoming apostle of the faith. In his speech, he stresses that it is not so much his own voice that Herod Agrippa is listening to but Jesus’s, the would-be victim of Agrippa’s great-grandfather.  

This same Jesus is now Christus Victor. Paul insists that what Scripture had said would happen has happened. The Messiah would suffer, “and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he [the Messiah!] would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles” (Acts 26:23, from yesterday’s reading). If I may point out the irony of the situation: Agrippa’s great-grandfather tried to kill Jesus for fear of being supplanted as king. But while Herod the Great is long gone, King Jesus lives. Paul is implying that Jesus is calling Agrippa, through Paul’s voice, to “repent and turn to God and do deeds consistent with repentance” (Acts 26:19, again, from yesterday’s reading).  

And though becoming “quickly persuad[ed] … to become a Christian” is indeed offered to this Herod, sadly he demurs (Acts 26:28). That makes Paul only the more determined to go—chains and all (26:29)—to Rome to make the same proclamation of God’s love in Christ the True King, with the same offer of eternal life, at the cost simply of loving obeisance.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

A Garden Land - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 10/14/2024 •
Proper 23 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 1; Psalm 2; Psalm 3; Micah 7:1-7(8-20); Acts 26:1-23; Luke 8:26-39 

Adding Sunday’s OT Scripture: Micah 6:1-8 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2-6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94) 

The last two chapters of Micah come to a thrilling (if complicated) climax. In Micah 6:1-8 (which would have been yesterday’s reading), the prophet presents Yahweh’s covenant-lawsuit against his unfaithful people: despite his mighty works to bring them out of Egypt, to conduct them through the wilderness, to win battles for them, and to bring them into the Promised Land—despite all the “saving acts of the Lord,” they have not kept covenant with him (Micah 6:1-5). What will restore covenant? Not works of empty religious ritual—no matter how pious looking, no matter how extreme (Micah 6:6-7).  

What will restore the broken relationship is a return to the terms of God’s covenant (Micah 6:8):  

• Do justice. The covenant calls for Israelites to treat one another as well as strangers and foreigners (indeed, creation itself) with fairness and equity. Even rest on the Sabbath day contemplates the well-being of servants and livestock and the land (Deuteronomy 5:12-15; Leviticus 26:34-35; 2 Chronicles 36:21). 
   

• Love kindness. The term here denotes something quite different from normal English associations with “kindness” (i.e., “being nice”). The Hebrew is ḥeseḏ, perhaps better rendered as “lovingkindness.” What it calls to mind is God’s lovingkindness toward his people, which invites—actually, demands—love in return. While it might feel awkward to translate the phrase, “Love lovingkindness,” that wording brings out its true resonance. Here, Micah is saying, “Yahweh has loved you! Love him back! Worship him and only him. Worship him his way, not yours. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.”  
   

Walk humbly with your God. The “walking” evokes Psalm 1’s “two paths” of life, one of life, and one of death. To walk the path of life calls for a non-bloated, rather than an over-inflated, sense of self. It calls for a sense of dependence, rather than of independence. A sense of one’s smallness and contingency. It calls for what Paul would refer to as “not thinking more highly of yourself than you ought” (Romans 12:3).

Image: Pixabay

In the first part of chapter 7, Micah illustrates these points: 

• Doing justice means distancing oneself from practices like “lying in wait for blood … hunting one another with nets,” offering bribes and perverting justice (Micah 7:3).   

• Loving “lovingkindness” is all about “looking to the Lord … waiting for the God of my salvation” … expecting that “my God will hear me” (Micah 7:7). Loving “lovingkindness” is about worship from the heart.   

• The path of humility calls for “bearing the indignation of the Lord” when one has sinned, and then patiently waiting for Yahweh’s vindication (not one’s own!) in the sight of one’s detractors (Micah 7:9).  

Those who “do justice, love lovingkindness, and walk humbly with their God” will indeed experience vindication, release, and peace. And that is what the last half of the last chapter of Micah promises. Micah is given a brief glimpse into the glorious future that God plans for his people and his renewed earth.  

God, who first brought his people out of subjugation in Egypt, will one day expand their borders and cause his people to live “in the midst of a garden land” (Micah 7:11,14). He will bring refugees from all points of the compass—these refugees will come to God’s re-Edenized land after the desolation of God’s final judgment (Micah 7:12-14).  

The God who made promises to Abraham and Jacob will prove faithful and unswervingly loyal (Micah 7:20). He will pardon iniquity and pass over transgression (Micah 7:18). He will delight in showing clemency: “He will again have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot” (Micah 7:19).  

Indeed, in Jesus Christ, Israel’s boundaries have been expanded to incorporate a worldwide “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:15) made up of sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah from every tribe and tongue (that’s the essence of the message of Paul’s letter to the Galatians). New Creation has taken hold in and among all who are “in Christ”: “If anyone is ‘in Christ,’ there is “new creation”! The “old things” have gone away! Behold! New things have begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, translation mine). New creation has taken hold for the very reason that Christ has trodden our sins underfoot and nailed them to his Cross (Colossians 2:13-15). And, to turn once again to the language of Micah, all our sins have thus been finally and utterly cast “into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). Praise be! 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Choose Wisely - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 10/11/2024 •
Proper 22

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 140; Psalm 142; Micah 3:9–4:5; Acts 24:24–25:12; Luke 8:1-15

Adding Saturday’s OT Scripture: Micah 5:1-4,10-15

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)

Micah: depth and height. Biblical faith plumbs the deepest depths and scales the highest heights. Nowhere is this range more clearly on display than in today’s reading in Micah. Micah thunders that “the mountain of the house” of God will be reduced to a “wooded height.” Then the prophet immediately trumpets the good news that “in days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains” (Micah 3:12–4:1). In other words, the Temple and Jerusalem will be razed, after which it will all be rebuilt and raised to a higher glory than that known under Solomon himself. 

Even as Micah prepares God’s people for the destruction and exile that are inescapable, he points to a day on the far side of that horrible experience when they will see God working wonders among them again. Israel will one day be the source of instruction (torah) and ethics (4:2) and of justice and peace for all the nations (4:3-4). With words that will also appear in Isaiah, the greatest of the prophets, Micah looks to weapons of war being transformed into implements of peace (4:3). He promises a day when anxious measures to secure safety in a dangerous world will yield to extended sabbath rest: “they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (4:4). 

Saturday’s reading in Micah furthers the trajectory of hope: at the center of this promise “in days to come” will be “one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from old,” and yet who will be born in Bethlehem, David’s hometown (Micah 5:2-4). Not surprisingly, we Christians have universally seen ourselves to be the direct beneficiaries to these promises, fulfilled in Jesus Christ. We are overwhelmingly grateful to find life and justice, and peace and rest in King Jesus, true Son of David. 

Image: "Vincent van Gogh - The Sower [1888]" by Gandalf's Gallery is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Luke: choose wisely. Biblical faith therefore sets forth the most extreme of choices: receive the word of promise and fulfillment with “an honest and good heart,” to find it bearing fruit “a hundred fold … with patient endurance.” Or dismiss that word, or treat it superficially, or let it become throttled by competing words—and lose out, eternally. The King has come, insists Luke’s Gospel: bow the knee, renounce other loyalties, and know everlasting shalom. 

Collect of the Reign of Christ: Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

To Love Much - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 10/10/2024 •
Proper 22

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 131; Psalm 132; Psalm 133; Micah 3:1-8; Acts 24:1-23; Luke 7:36-50 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)

Today’s readings show us striking alternatives. We can return God’s love with grateful love, with outright rejection, or with cold indifference.  

Luke. The centerpiece of today’s readings—indeed a centerpiece of Luke’s gospel—is Luke’s account of a “sinful woman” anointing Jesus. The passage is proof positive that Jesus is indeed the “friend of … sinners” people have come to think he is (Luke 7:34). What constitutes her sinfulness is left to our imaginations. Tradition has associated her with Mary Magdalene, but that is only tradition. The woman is unnamed, and so is the nature of her sin. That makes it easier, I think, for each of us to put ourselves in her place—because that’s where each of us belongs. 

Image: "Mary Anoints Jesus" by elizaraxi is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

What is of note is the courage of her very presence at this table of such very righteous people, the custom-defying physicality of her ministrations, and the utter lack of reserve in her display of emotion. Surely, she has not been invited to this party, but here she is: bathing Jesus’s feet with her tears and drying them with her hair, and anointing them with expensive oil. This is party-crashing at its very best! 

Reading the heart of Simon his host as only the God-Man can (“the Pharisee … said to himself ‘If this man were a prophet…’”), Jesus rebukes him because Simon has failed to provide normal, minimal hospitality to his guest. Jesus then tells the parable of the two debtors whose relative loves match the relative weight of the debts forgiven them (Luke 7:41-43). 

And, reading her heart as only the God-Man can, Jesus says of the uninvited woman, “Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love” (Luke 7:47 NRSV), or “Her great love proves that her many sins have been forgiven” (REB). 

Those who have been loved much, love much in return. 

I pray that you and I never lose track of what it cost Love to gain our forgiveness, nor ever outlive our love for the Payer of the debt. 

Micah. Luke’s account puts in relief the anger of Micah the prophet at the political and religious rulers who are supposed to “know justice,” but instead “hate the good and love the evil” — whose unjust practices amount to a metaphorical cannibalism: “who eat the flesh of my people, and flay the skin off them” (Micah 3:1-3). Love of self has displaced any possibility of welcoming God’s love. And so, consequences. Purported prophets only “lead my people astray” (3:5). Seers go blind (3:6). Diviners get “no answer from God” (3:7). There’s only one possible result: “Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house (i.e., the Temple) a wooded height” (3:12). 

As the writer to the Hebrews will later put it: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). To rework it slightly: “It is a fearful thing to say ‘No!’ over and over again to a protective God’s overtures of love.” 

In the Book of Acts, the Roman governor Felix shows himself to be too cool a customer to open himself to God’s loving approach. The Felix before whom Paul appears in this passage is a minor “somebody” in the Roman world. He is a freedman of Antonia, the Emperor Claudius’s mother. Felix’s brother, Pallas, is Claudius’s secretary of finance. The Roman historian Tacitus says Felix “occupied the office of a king while having the mind of a slave, saturated with cruelty and lust” (Histories 5.9). Years after his encounter with Paul, Felix will perish at Pompeii during the famous eruption of Vesuvius. What a story his conversion could have made. Today’s passage (and the first four verses of tomorrow’s reading) is the lone recorded account of Felix’s encounter with the grace of God. This would have been one big fat celebrity conversion. But it was not to be. All Felix can think about is how he might possibly extract a bribe (Acts 24:26) from this semi-famous Jewish personage who says he has brought “to my nation alms and offerings” (Acts 24:17).

Like Simon the Pharisee, Felix the governor nonchalantly dismisses God’s kiss of grace. May you and I not do so. Instead, may we return much love with much love. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

An Invitation to the Dance - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 10/9/2024 •
Proper 22

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:145-176; Micah 2:1-13; Acts 23:23-35; Luke 7:18-35

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)

Let’s focus today on Jesus’s message to John the Baptist about God’s timeline for salvation. 

In Luke’s Gospel, John the Baptist had been looking forward to One more powerful than he baptizing with “the Holy Spirit and fire” — coming to gather the wheat, “but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Luke 3:16,17). John the Baptist had been prophesying a single coming of God with a double effect: blessing and judgment. The kinds of things that are being reported to John the Baptist in Herod’s prison are indeed signs of the inauguration of the blessings of the age of the Spirit: the sick are being raised up, and even the dead (Luke 7:1-17). But where’s the fire? Where’s the burning of the chaff? Where’s the reckoning for the likes of Herod who has arrested John (see Matthew 11:2)? How is the Baptist to reconcile the coming of the good (the healings) with the continuance of the bad (the persistence of evil)?

Image: Titian , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“The year of the Lord’s favor.” It is to make a dual point that Luke narrates today’s story. The message parallels Luke’s earlier account of Jesus’s reading of Scripture in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:16-21). There Jesus had ended the reading of the Isaiah passage with “the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19; Isaiah 61:2). He had not included the next phrase in Isaiah, “and the day of the vengeance of our God.” What’s being fulfilled at Jesus’s coming, and in his reading, is the blessing of God’s people. For now, punishment of God’s enemies is being delayed. The Lord has come with the benevolence that the prophets had promised, but not yet with the final reckoning against all that is evil. A new age is arriving, the ushering in of an age of blessing: of “good news for the poor,” of “release to the captives,” of “recovery of sight to the blind,” of “letting the oppressed go free.” But not in totality—because the final settling of accounts and the ultimate meting out of judgment, is still “not yet.”

Thus, in today’s passage, for the sake of John the Baptist’s emissaries who are wondering on his behalf where is the combination of the Spirit of blessing and the fire of judgment, Jesus performs another clutch of messianic miracles. Doing so, in Luke 7:22, he points to the way these miracles prove that the Age of the Messiah—the Age of the Spirit—has indeed come: the blind receive their sight (Isaiah 35:5), the lame walk (Isaiah 35:6), the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear (Isaiah 29:18), the dead are raised (Isaiah 26:19), the poor have good news brought to them (Isaiah 61:1). 

But then Jesus says (I paraphrase Luke 7:23), “don’t stumble over the fact that God hasn’t taken Herod out yet, nor freed you from prison, nor wiped—just yet—all evil from the face of the earth.” 

John the Baptist’s task. In this passage, Jesus provides his most extensive commentary on John the Baptist’s role in the history of redemption. The Old Testament prophetic point of view had been that a day is approaching—a single day—in which God will come to bless his people and punish his enemies. John the Baptist is the last and the greatest of the bearers of this message. The sobriety of John’s ministry is that his job was to issue a call to repentance, a call for preparation, a call for getting one’s house in order. In the metaphor that Jesus uses, the Baptist’s presence in the wilderness was a “wailing” that amounted to an invitation to weep over sin and unworthiness. Weep, for judgment is coming—that’s his message. 

Invitation to the dance. What is happening, though, is that God’s coming is being staged in two parts. First, the Lord comes to bless—to open up an era of hope, of healing, of opportunity. First, he comes to provide redemption and to offer “a place on the team,” so to speak. At this first coming, he is being welcomed by all those who know they need grace to stand in the “day of vengeance of our God.” God’s Messiah is being welcomed by all those who know he has come to bring a forgiveness they desperately need. This first coming of the Lord (announced as the glad invasion of “joy” and “peace on earth” by the angels in Luke 2:10,14) is, in terms of the metaphor Jesus uses in today’s passage, “playing the pipe,” inviting people to dance (Luke 7:32). This Messiah has come “eating and drinking,” befriending “tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34-35). 

I pray that the graciousness of the first coming of Jesus is not lost on us. I pray that we respond to his invitation to “join the team”—or, better, as the metaphor suggests: join the dance, grateful that the Dancer-from-Heaven delights in kicking up his heels with “tax collectors and sinners” like us. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Jesus Can Get Us All the Way Home - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 10/8/2024 •
Proper 22

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 121; Psalm 122; Psalm 123; Micah 1:1-9; Acts 23:12-24; Luke 7:1-17

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)

Micah. The Daily Office now turns to the ministry of the 8th century BC prophet Micah. Following Hosea’s lead, Micah treats the Northern Kingdom, Israel, as Yahweh’s beloved wife who has prostituted herself to other gods: “…as the wages of a prostitute she has gathered [her wages]” (Micah 1:7). As a result, Israel is bringing destruction upon herself through the imminent Assyrian invasion. Micah, who is from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, sees danger for his own people as well. He accuses his beloved Judah of the same crimes as Israel: “And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?” (Micah 1:5). Worship, even in the Temple—the legitimate place of worship—has become tainted with idolatry. 

Prophecies in the book of Micah will range from warnings of devastating judgment for both Israel and Judah (1:2-5); to pleas for justice, faithfulness, and humility (6:8); and to promises of rescue by a Bethlehem-born Messiah from the line of David (5:2-5a). 

Image: Image: Abraham Sobkowski OFM, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons

In Luke’s gospel, we find the Bethlehem-born Son of David accomplishing this very rescue. The Messiah comes in blessing, not only to the Jew, but also to the non-Jew. In today’s reading, Jesus extends God’s love to a Roman centurion and his close-to-death slave (Luke 7:1-10). The centurion’s expression of faith is instructive as well as extraordinary. His message to Jesus is, in essence, “If you say the word, I believe it will be done, without personally needing an audience with you.” If only we could be so confident! We have Christ’s words in Scripture, but we often find it difficult to trust him as we ought.  

Similarly, if ever we wanted to be confident that Jesus identifies with us in our sorrows, we have only to turn to biblical accounts of Jesus responding to the grief of others. When Jesus stood outside the tomb of Lazarus, John, using powerful Greek terms, writes that “…he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved” and “Jesus wept” (John 11:33,35). Here in Luke 7, a widow’s only son has died. Her loss is significant, not simply because of her love for her child, but also because, as a widow, devastatingly, her life has changed. She has lost her means of support, and she faces a grim future. When Jesus encounters her in a funeral procession, Luke records, “he had compassion for her,” using a graphic term for the feeling of emotion: splanchnizestai, which means something like “feel deep down in one’s inward parts or bowels.” The young man is brought back to life, and Jesus presents the son back to the mother. We see in Jesus not just empathy in our sorrows, but power to transform them: he can defeat death itself. His power to raise the dead to physical life prefigures his power to raise the believer to eternal life.  Jesus can get us all the way home. 

Acts. In Luke’s companion volume to Luke, we see the heirs of Israel’s and Judah’s covenantally faithless leadership resisting their Messiah. Spiritually dead themselves, they refuse the explanation and offer of spiritual life in Christ, and subsequently concoct a conspiracy to kill the formerly spiritually dead apostle Paul. Nevertheless, the Lord has other plans, and informs Paul that he will be God’s witness—in Rome!  Thus, by some “chance,” a nephew of Paul’s happens to hear of the plot to kill Paul. The young man brings the information to Paul. Paul, who by this time has learned something about the ethical character of the Roman commander, instructs the young man to give the commander the details of the plan.  Hearing of the scheme, the fair-dealing commander springs into action. He issues orders to provide Paul with a military escort out of town, foiling the intentions of the Jews. Jesus is going to get Paul all the way to Rome.

Collect of the Day: Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Like an Evergreen Cypress - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 10/7/2024 •
Monday of Proper 22

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 106:1-18; Hosea 14:1-9; Acts 22:30–23:11; Luke 6:39-49

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2-6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)

Today finds me pondering the arresting imagery in Hosea. 

The prophet Hosea has used powerful and penetrating metaphors and similes to communicate Yahweh’s persistent appeals to Israel. Yahweh is an estranged husband who will not be denied (1:2–3:5). He is a disappointed father who will not give up on his child/son (11:1-9). He is like a lion who roars both in wrath (5:14; 13:7) and in love (11:10). 

Image: Vincent van Gogh , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Likewise, Hosea has used compelling metaphors and similes to characterize his people. Israel is (or is like) a wayward wife (1:2–3:5), a luxuriant vine (10:1), a trained heifer (10:11), a lost child/son (11:1-9), a flock of disoriented birds (8:11-12; 11:11). 

Metaphor transfers the meaning of one thing to another for the sake of comparison (from the Greek metaphorein, meaning “transfer”). Simile likens one thing to another, likewise for the sake of comparison (from the Latin similis, meaning “similar, like”). Metaphor and simile provide the Bible with tools to reshape our perception of reality: “This is that, isn’t it?” or “This is like that, isn’t it?” Hosea wants us to reshape our imaginations—inviting us to “see” Yahweh’s resolute love for us, and our resolute rebelliousness and our squandering of his love. And Hosea wants us to picture how we might answer God’s resolute love by turning from our irresolution in love. 

In the final chapter of the Book of Hosea, the prophet makes one last direct appeal, and then showers us with one last burst of metaphors and similes of his love. It’s really quite beautiful and moving, I think. 

Yahweh’s appeal for repentance — Hosea 14:1-3,8

• Acknowledge that you are the one responsible for your situation — 14:1

• “Take words with you … the fruit of your lips” — i.e., name the specifics and ask for forgiveness — 14:2

• Confess that the true God is your only hope — 14:3,8

Metaphors & similes of God’s amazing promises to “re-Edenize” the world through Israel: “I will be like the dew to Israel…” — Hosea 14:4-7

• “…like the lily” — Yahweh will beautify the ugly.

• “…like the forests of Lebanon” — Yahweh will strengthen the weak.

• “…his shoots shall spread out” — Yahweh will make Israel’s now contracted spiritual heart once again expansive. 

• “…like the olive tree” — Yahweh will make Israel’s now unproductive spiritual life once again the source of spiritual value in the world. 

• “…fragrance like that of Lebanon” — Yahwah will replace the stench of rot exuding from Israel with a delightful aroma. 

• “…live beneath my shadow … flourish as a garden” — Where there is now withered spiritual dryness, Yahweh will create lush and luxuriant spiritual life. 

Hosea offers one last simile for Yahweh and his people: “I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit” (Hosea 14:8 RSV). Whether he got it directly from Hosea or not, Vincent Van Gogh was profoundly shaped in his spiritual life by this image. The most memorable line (in my view) of the one sermon that survives from a young Vincent’s short career in ministry is the aspiration he urges upon us: “to be born again … to an evergreen life.” I pray that God’s evergreen life becomes your own.

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Always Time to Seek the Lord - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 10/4/2024 •

Friday of Proper 21

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 102; Hosea 10:1-15; Acts 21:37–22:16; Luke 6:12-26

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6-11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

Today’s readings — from Hosea, Luke, and Acts — are a study in the difference between reality and appearance—what German crisply calls the difference between “Sein und Schein.” 

Reality & appearance: Hosea. To all appearances, Israel is flourishing like the “vine” God planted her to be (Hosea 10:1; and see Isaiah 5:1-5; Jeremiah 2:21; Psalm 80:8-11). Since the Garden of Eden, the earth has been devoid of spiritual life. Israel is God’s greenhouse, anticipating the return of Eden. Indeed, to outward appearances, life in the Northern Kingdom is good. Prosperity reigns. Good times roll. Altars (to false gods) and palaces abound. But the royal pomp and religious display in the Northern Kingdom is all show, no go! Because of the rot beneath the surface, God’s garden there is filled with “poisonous weeds” and “thorn and thistle” (Hosea 10:4,8). Words from the courts do not promote God’s justice, and so litigation flourishes “like poisonous weeds.” Worship focuses around golden calves at altars established in northern cities to rival Jerusalem’s temple in the south. And so, ritual there is empty—I think of a phrase that Paul will use centuries later: “having a form of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:5). The golden calves will be carried away as tribute to “the great king” of Assyria:  

The inhabitants of Samaria tremble
    for the calf of Beth-aven [literally, “house of worthlessness,” a mocking pun on Bethel, “house of God”].
Its people shall mourn for it,
    and its idolatrous priests shall wail over it,
    over its glory that has departed from it.

The thing itself [i.e., the golden calf] shall be carried to Assyria
    as tribute to the great king. 
Ephraim shall be put to shame,
    and Israel shall be ashamed of his idol. — Hosea 10:5-6

And where the golden calves once stood, supposedly emblematic of Israel’s identity of abundant life, there will grow “thorn and thistle.” Phony religiosity and sham spirituality will be unmasked.  

Even so, though the exile is inevitable, the call to forsake the illusion always comes: “Sow righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you” (Hosea 10:12). It is always time to seek the Lord! There is always, insists Hosea, time to give up appearance for reality. 

Image: Pixabay

Reality & appearance: Luke. To all appearances, the “good life” consists in having money to burn, an ample palate, boundless fun … with everybody thinking you’re amazing. Jesus says otherwise:

Woe to you who are rich,
    for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now,
    for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who are laughing now,
    for you will mourn and weep. 

Woe to you when all speak well of you…. — Luke 6:24-25

To Jesus “the good life” involves poverty, hunger, weeping … with everybody thinking you’re a “nothing”: 

Blessed are you who are poor,
    for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now,
    for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
    for you will laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy…. — Luke 6:20-22

The reality is that the “good life” consists in a full reckoning with how upside down everything has become since the Garden. Pardon me for putting it this way, but it’s the good news of sin — the way things are isn’t the way things are supposed to be. We saw this truth being expressed over and over again in Ecclesiastes: it isn’t always the case that hard work is rewarded, that good guys always win. The real world isn’t “garbage in, garbage out.” Sometimes the boogerheads get put in charge. Sometimes there’s no adult on the playground. Sometimes we are living the world of The Lord of the Flies. Despite what parents and teachers tell us as kids, people don’t always play by the rules, and cheaters can prosper. “Haves” don’t necessarily deserve what they have; and “have nots” aren’t necessarily at fault for their not having.

Jesus has come to raise the lowly and bring down the exalted: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low” (Isaiah 40:4). He has come to humble the proud and ennoble the humiliated. The Kingdom of God puts the upside-down right side up again. Thus, Jesus calls his people to sacrifice for the impoverished, to share the hunger of the famished, to weep with those who weep…. and, in doing so, to be regarded as “fools for Christ” (1 Corinthians 4:10). 

Reality & appearance: Acts. In today’s passage in Acts, Luke provides the second of three accounts of Paul’s call to follow and serve Christ (Acts 9:1-29; 22:1-21; 26:9-20). In this account, the voice is Paul’s.  He wants his fellow Jews to know that his acceptance of Christ is not the renunciation of his Judaism, but a deeper acceptance of it. That’s why Paul addresses his Jerusalem audience not in the Greek of his letters to the Gentile churches but in Hebrew (probably actually Aramaic). Here Paul embraces the privilege of his birth in Tarsus, “no mean city,” his upbringing in Jerusalem, and his education “at the feet of Gamaliel” (one of the premier teachers of Pharisaic Judaism of the first century). Paul shares his audience’s zeal for God, a zeal that their tradition has taught them. And although he uses his social privilege to identify himself and connect with his fellow Jews, he will later explain (Philippians 3) it is not his fancy background, but knowing Christ, which is the source of his worth. 

Paul’s point is that he has been found by the “Righteous One” who fulfills and embodies that tradition, and for whom that tradition has prepared him and his ministry. Christ has revealed himself to Paul as bringing a holy call from “the God of our ancestors” (Acts 22:14). God is sending Paul on a mission to fulfill the promise to Abraham that Israel would bring blessing to the nations: “for you will be his witness to all the world of what you have seen and heard” (Acts 22:15). 

It’s pretty easy to fool the world with the slick shiny stuff. Golden calves. Riches. Social privilege. Yes, yes, we know that God is not fooled. But, sadly, we ourselves are often fooled. Sometimes we need clear reminders from God’s perspective about the true nature of what lies beneath appearances: his very real anger at injustice and false worship, his true ordering of what constitutes a good life, the true source of a person’s worth.

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

"Take Care..." - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 10/3/2024 •

Thursday of Proper 21

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105:1-22; Hosea 5:8–6:6; Acts 21:27-36; Luke 6:1-11 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)

Today’s lessons are a study in what is the one great enemy of the human soul. This enemy the writer to the Hebrews names “the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). 

Sin’s deceitfulness: Hosea. The sin of false worship deceives the Northern Kingdom of Israel as to what threatens her well-being. Her spiritual adultery has brought dire consequences; she thinks she is under threat from outside forces (from Judah, the Southern Kingdom), and so she seeks unholy alliances (with Assyria). But it is chiefly the ferocity of Yahweh’s jealous love that she has brought upon herself: “I will be like a lion to Ephraim … I will tear and go away … I have hewn them by the prophets” (Hosea 5:14; 6:5). 

The answer is really quite simple, if not easy: 

• “steadfast love” (as opposed to a false, temporary “love … like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early” — 6:4) …

• “…and not sacrifice” (for though they could barely realize it at the time, one day there will be a Sacrifice that results in “a third day” raising up to life — 6:2), 

• “the knowledge of God” (that is, intimate and exclusive fellowship with their true Husband Yahweh) …

• “…rather than burnt offerings” (“smells and bells” minus heart-devotion stir God’s disgust, not his affections—Hosea 6:6). 

Image: Sebastiano Ricci , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sin’s deceitfulness: Luke. In Jesus’s confrontations with the scribes and the Pharisees (Luke 6:2,7) over the significance of the sabbath day, the “deceitfulness of sin” manifests itself in their misunderstanding of the significance of God’s commands generally, and his command to keep the sabbath specifically. David had put the well-being of his companions ahead of the sanctity of the showbread (1Samuel 21:1-6). In doing so, he had embodied the principle that “steadfast love” outweighs “sacrifice.” A thousand years later, Jesus comes as “the Son of Man” to underscore the point. God sympathizes with humans in their suffering. Healing, as he does, on the sabbath, Jesus, “the lord of the sabbath,” embodies the principle that the sabbath is a gift for restoration and healing, not a summons to smug, sanctimonious, spiritual self-promotion. 

Sin’s deceitfulness: Acts. Sin’s deceitfulness is in full force when Paul’s enemies misrepresent him as having violated Jewish scruples about bringing Gentiles into the Temple precincts. Indeed, as far as Paul is concerned, Christ’s sacrifice has destroyed the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:14-16). But out of respect for his countrymen, Paul has honored their principles, leaving the Gentile members of his retinue outside while he enters the Temple. Paul desires to win unbelieving fellow Jews with God’s love, not bludgeon them over their spiritual blindness. Not so long ago he himself had not been able to figure out that God’s Messiah had come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus had had to appear to him personally. Now he is committed simply to telling and showing the good news, letting Christ do the convincing. Sin’s deceitfulness can be taken away by the Lord—it really can, but only by the Lord. Paul knows that. And so should we. 

A fitting conclusion for our meditation on these passages is the urging from Hebrews: “Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin”—Hebrews 3:12-13. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

An Insult Overlooked - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 10/2/2024 •

Wednesday of Proper 21

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 101; Psalm 109:1-4(5-19)20-30; Hosea 4:11-19; Acts 21:15-26; Luke 5:27-39

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

Three phrases jump out at me this morning: one from Hosea, one from Luke, and one from Acts. 

For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray… — Hosea 4:12. King Solomon’s heart had been divided. So many wives! So many concubines! So many different gods being worshiped under his roof! (See 1 Kings 11:1-8). His divided heart was followed in the next generation by a divided kingdom. The 10 northern tribes became the nation of Israel. The problem for the Northern Kingdom was that God had commanded that worship was to be centered in a single place (Deuteronomy 12), which became Jerusalem, now lying in the rival Southern Kingdom of Judah (the home of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin). In order to distinguish itself from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, the Northern Kingdom of Israel established its own centers of worship: Bethel and Dan. Further, the informal idolatry that Solomon had tacitly allowed into his expansive household became institutionalized in the Northern Kingdom. Israel built altars to compete with the one in Jerusalem. Israel adorned them with images that looked a lot like the golden calves from the Book of Exodus (1 Kings 12:26-33). And Israel blended worship of Yahweh with worship of old fertility gods of Canaan, the Baals and the Asherahs. By the time Hosea rises as a prophet, this is the way things have been for a couple of centuries. It’s assumed in the Northern Kingdom that you can combine worship of Yahweh with veneration of local deities, and that loyalty to the covenant is consistent with “sexual orgies” and “love of lewdness” (Hosea 4:19). 

Of their idolatry and immorality Hosea says, “A wind has wrapped them in its wings” (Hosea 4:19). We might describe idolatry and immorality as simply having become “the air they breathe.” 

I can’t get past Hosea’s sobering words without pausing to reflect on whether there are idolatrous impulses and immoral compulsions that are part of the air we breathe, a way of being that we take perfectly for granted. I’m not pointing fingers. I’m not launching into a tirade about this sin or that. I’m simply suggesting a pause for reflection here at the beginning of the day. 

“…while the bridegroom is with them…” — Luke 5:27-39. The good news is that God didn’t leave us to pull ourselves out of the morass. He knows we can’t! He didn’t expect us to beautify ourselves, to clean ourselves up, and to make ourselves worthy of him. He knows we can’t! The good news, says the gospel of Luke, is that the Bridegroom that Hosea promised has come. He has come as both Bridegroom and Physician, “to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). As a result, the expected gloominess of repentance, says Jesus, is misplaced. Christ’s presence is a time for celebration, for joy—the Bridegroom has come, bringing a banquet of love! The restoration of the marriage of heaven and earth on the far side of judgment that Hosea had promised is freely offered in Jesus’s life and ministry. Bring out the new wine! 

You see, brother…” — Acts 21:20. The impact of the Groom’s coming was felt no stronger than by Luke’s traveling companion, the apostle Paul. To the Ephesians (whom we read him addressing in Acts 20) Paul will later write that Christ is Groom to the Church as the Church is Bride to Christ (Ephesians 5). To give concrete expression to the revelation of God’s love in Christ, Paul has spent the last year and a half collecting funds from the Gentile churches as a gift for the Jerusalem believers—those most skeptical of his ministry (about which Paul writes at some length in 2 Corinthians 8-9). 

What is captured for us in today’s reading in Acts is the moment when Paul would have presented his gift to the Jerusalem church. We know that the gift is on his mind from what he says about it later (see Acts 24:17a). What is striking—indeed, breathtaking—is that the moment of the gift-giving is actually passed over in silence. The leaders of the Jerusalem church welcome Paul, listen to his account of what God has been doing among the Gentiles, and praise God for it (Acts 21:17-20a). Then, instead of thanking him for the not insignificant gift that would have accompanied the narrative, they ask him to go “a second mile.” Thus, “You see, brother….” Paul is expected to underwrite sacrifices in the Temple to refute charges that he is encouraging Jewish Christians to abandon Jewish practice. It’s stunning that there is no protest on his part, either of how odd it is to continue to participate in Temple sacrifices now that Christ has made his own once-for-all offering, nor of how they might have at least said, “Thanks, Paul, for this amazing expression of love you bring from the Gentile churches.” 

That Paul accommodates the Jerusalem church’s leadership, and that he does so ungrudgingly, can be accounted for by one thing, and one thing only: he cannot do anything but love the Bride with the same patience, generosity of Spirit, and graciousness that the Groom has extended to him. I pray that your life and mine may be marked with the Groom’s love for the Bride he cherishes and champions. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Tied to the Destiny of God's Image Bearers - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 10/1/2024 •

Tuesday of Proper 21

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; Hosea 4:1-10; Acts 21:1-14; Luke 5:12-26

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)

Yesterday, we read the prophet Hosea’s promise that Yahweh will restore his marriage to his people in a “re-Edenized” creation. Today, however, Yahweh indicts his people for violating their marriage vows to the Lord. He points to the misery that Israel’s faithlessness has brought upon herself and upon creation. Faithfulness and loyalty have given way to swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery: “bloodshed follows bloodshed” (Hosea 4:1-2). And because the destiny of all the rest of creation is tied to the destiny of God’s image bearers, the effects are felt in creation as well: “Therefore the land mourns … together with the wild animals, and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea” (Hosea 4:3). Israel’s life is supposed to anticipate God’s reunification of heaven and earth, and his reestablishment of shalom on the earth. Instead, her life manifests the great divorce between heaven and earth, and the brokenness of life on the earth without God. 

Image: Nikolay Bogatov , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. — Hosea 4:6. To me personally, the most sobering part of Hosea’s indictment is the charge he brings against Israel’s priests. It’s their responsibility to teach people, to model what life in covenant with Yahweh looks like. They are the ones who are to hold before people the vision of the marriage of heaven and earth. It is to mirror piety in their own lives. It expresses an embracing of, and immersion in, “the law of your God” (Hosea 4:6). It echoes living and teaching as though, as the apostle Paul says, nothing matters but “keeping the commandments of God” (1 Corinthians 7:19). In a word, it displays the duality of simultaneously standing “on” and “under” the Word of God as authority.  

When unbelief takes hold in the hearts of those charged with promoting belief, no good thing follows. I’ve seen that. Pulpits become platforms for personal and political agendas. “The way I read it” replaces “Thus says the Lord.” “What the Bible should have said” displaces “The Bible says.” People are taught to read Scripture (if they are taught to read it at all) through the lens of skepticism, suspicion, radical doubt, and readiness to correct. Claims to unmask hidden biases in the Bible mask hidden biases in the interpreter. As Peter puts it bluntly, when he denounces false teachers who “speak bombastic nonsense, and [who] with licentious desires of the flesh … entice people … They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption” (2 Peter 2:18-19). Or as Hosea puts it in today’s passage: “They feed on the sin of my people; they are greedy for their iniquity” (Hosea 4:8). 

Inevitably, then, as Hosea says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Doubt begets doubt, skepticism begets skepticism, a critical spirit begets a critical spirit. A church that is supposed to promote Jesus Christ and his Kingdom promotes anything else, whether it’s one group’s mindset of greed (“how Jesus can make you rich”) or another’s platform of envy (“how Jesus wants you to take away their riches”). 

In the Christian calendar, we are in the orb of the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels. It is a time to praise God for the heavenly powers he uses to defend and protect his people—from Michael the Archangel, the “protector” of God’s people in the Book of Daniel (12:1), to the angels who stand guard over the seven churches in the Book of Revelation (chapters 2-3). It is a good day to call upon the Lord to bolster heaven’s armies for the bringing of fresh strength and new resolve to his servants on the earth. Especially in order that servants of the church may “feel a divine jealousy [for Christ’s church], … promised … in marriage to one husband, to present [her] as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2). 

Collect of St. Michael and All Angels 

Everlasting God, who have ordained and constituted in a wonderful order the ministries of angels and mortals: Mercifully grant that, as your holy angels always serve and worship you in heaven, so by your appointment they may help and defend us here on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Be blessed this day. 

Reggie Kidd+