A Rediscovered Eden And More - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 10/30/2024 •

Proper 25

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:49-72; Song of Songs 4:9–5:1; Revelation 12:1-6; Luke 11:37-52

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)

For our Old Testament reading last week, this week, and the next, I am treating the Song of Songs instead of the lectionary’s choice, Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Ben Sirach). Together, I hope we are discovering or rediscovering some of the wonder of this “Best of Songs.” Today’s portion is Song of Songs 4:9–5:1. 

Sacramental love. There is a spiritual habit of soul—a capacity for “seeing through” to “the other side”—that is difficult for secularized Westerners to comprehend, much less experience. That’s why so many modern commentators flatten the physical similes and metaphors of love in the Song of Song. Late modern people have become tone deaf to supernal overtones—what sociologist Peter Berger calls “rumors of angels.” 

You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride…” — Song of Songs 4:9. Our male singer and lover finds in his “sister” and “bride” a rediscovered Eden. His garden imagery is not just exotic but fantastic—fruits and flowers that would grow together in no garden in this world: “…with all choicest fruits, henna and nard,… and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, with all chief spices—a garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon.” It is Paradise that he is imagining, for streams did not flow from Lebanon to Israel. In a Palestine that is perpetually threatened with drought, he has found, in her, his own secret garden with its ever-flowing supply of water. For him, she has become the place where he returns to Eden— where everything is possible and where life is always new.

Moreover, she takes him back to Israel’s entry into the Promised Land. Communion with her is the partaking of milk and honey: “I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my wine with my milk” — Song of Songs 5:1. Milk and honey, of course, were crowning symbols of the richness of the Promised Land (Exodus 3:8). Noting, by the way, the convergence of wine and milk and honey in the Song of Songs, the Apostolic Tradition, often attributed to Hippolytus (of the church of Rome, early 3rd  century AD), supplemented the Eucharistic wine with milk and honey, symbolizing thereby the notion that communion with Christ is its own way of enjoying the bounty of the Promised Land: “…and milk and honey mingled together in fulfillment of the promise which was made to the Fathers, wherein he said ‘I will give you a land flowing with milk and honey’; which Christ indeed gave, even his flesh, whereby they who believe are nourished like little children, making the bitterness of the heart sweet by the sweetness of his word.” 

What’s more, she who is herself “an orchard of pomegranates” embodies for her lover communion with God in the temple. Pomegranates adorned the High Priest’s robe (Exodus 28:31-36; 39:22-26). Solomon set two-hundred bronze pomegranates atop the two pillars of bronze in the temple (1 Kings 7:13-22). And the very smell of her (“with all trees of frankincense, myrrh…”) puts our singer in mind of the altar from which rises the fragrance of spiced incense. There is an enchanting beauty to God’s holiness (Psalm 98:6) that the sights and smells of the temple excite in him—a beauty to which the sight and smell of her sacramentally attune him. 

The biblical world is first and foremost a challenge to a redeemed imagination, and to a restored sacramental sensibility. One of the great gifts of the Song of Songs is to contribute to the reclamation of spiritual sight and taste and smell and touch. 

The same is true for today’s passage in Revelation. Here Christ’s entire earthly career is mind-blowingly summarized, as it careens from birth to ascension against the backdrop of murderous malevolent intent. But the focus is on the pregnant heavenly royal woman who, under attack by a great red dragon, gives birth to her royal son. The son is taken to heaven, while she escapes to the wilderness, “where she has a place prepared by God.” Who is the woman? Mary? a new Israel? the Church? all of the above? In the rest of Revelation, the mother who has become the woman-of-the-wilderness becomes the Bride of Christ. Meanwhile, we will discover that her eventual elevation comes at the expense of her evil counterpart, the Whore of Babylon. The biblical world invites—no, demands—a looking beyond immediate headlines and pressing duties to a larger cosmic drama. 

Luke & Jesus’s “woes” against faux faith. With so much at stake in the grand biblical drama, it is small wonder that Jesus speaks piteous woes against those who are supposed to be guardians and promoters of the faith in his day. Those who are tasked with enlarging and building up people’s faith have been diminishing it and undermining it. And so Jesus denounces: 

• their externalism (“Did not he who made the outside make the inside also?”), 

• their elevating things less important above the more important (“you tithe mint and rue and herbs…, and neglect justice and the love of God”), 

• their pride (“…you love to have the seat of honor”), 

• the very vacuousness of their being (“…you are like unmarked graves”), 

• their lying piety (“…you approve the [murderous] deeds of your ancestors and build … tombs [to those they murdered]”) 

• their hypocritical cruelty (“…you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering”). 

May your time in God’s Word open up to you the vast horizons of his abiding trustworthiness, the grand hope of glory that is yours, and his overwhelmingly persistent love for you. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

More Than a Human Bride and Groom - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 10/29/2024 •

Proper 25

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 45; Psalm 98; Song of Songs 4:1-8; Revelation 11:14-19; Luke 11:27-36

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)

For our Old Testament reading last week, this week, and the next, I am treating the Song of Songs instead of the lectionary’s choice, Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Ben Sirach). Together, I hope we are discovering or rediscovering some of the wonder of this “Best of Songs.” Today’s portion is Song of Songs 4:1–8. 

Psalm 45 and Song of Songs — Beauty’s measure. “You are the most handsome of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever” — Psalm 45:2. 

“How beautiful you are, my love, how very beautiful. … You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you” — Song of Songs 4:1,7. 

I hope you’ll take the time to read and linger over these verses in Psalm 45 and in Chapter 4 of the Song of Songs. Today’s readings bring together two elegant love poems for our consideration, not only of Christ’s love for his church, but for consideration of the exquisite character of an ideal love between a man and a woman.

Psalm 45 contains the love poem of a bride to her husband describing his physical attractiveness. She continues by describing his many admirable other qualities and exhorts him to fulfill his role as king. The psalm concludes with instruction for the bride to let go of her former life and embrace a life richer and more wonderful than the one she is leaving.

In the verses in the Song of Songs, the husband lauds the physical beauty of his wife. The features that he finds enchanting are clear enough to us: flowing tresses, perfect teeth, crimson lips, rosy cheeks, a noble neck, and enticing breasts. In a culture where images couldn’t easily be captured (say, by a painting or a photograph), descriptions had to support memory. What do I remember about the way she looks? What was her hair like? Her teeth? Her lips? Her cheeks? The husband reviews in his mind the physical attributes which make his bride desirable to him. 

Thus, the specifics of the imagery come from another world where no camera exists to capture a memory. There’s more than a hint here, of a deep, genuine devotion. This is no make-believe, no infatuation, no romance novel kind of love. The lover sees what the lover sees, and what the lover sees is its own standard of beauty: the specific features of love’s beloved. This is one of the beautiful things about language and imagination. It takes elasticity of spirit to be able to appreciate any work of art—poetry, painting, music—but especially those coming from a different time and a different place. But the effort is fundamentally humanizing and, in the end, God-honoring.

Image: Pixabay

As we think about God contemplating us, it is worth keeping in mind that the Bible’s supreme message to us is what today’s opening verse shouts: “How beautiful you are, my love, how very beautiful.” Christ has come for his Bride. And he has done so because he finds her ravishingly beautiful. 

The Groom and the Bride. The psalm makes clear the speaker of these verses is more than a human bride, and her groom much more than a perfect vision of a human husband. The groom is the eternal Messiah, the champion of truth and justice: Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity; you love righteousness and hate wickedness. That the reference is to Jesus Christ himself is made indisputably clear by its inclusion in the letter to the Hebrews (I rather like the Jerusalem Bible’s rendering): 

 But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
   and the righteous scepter is the scepter of your kingdom.
9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has anointed you
    with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”

10 And,

“In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth,
    and the heavens are the work of your hands;
11 they will perish, but you remain;
    they will all wear out like clothing;
12 like a cloak you will roll them up,
    and like clothing they will be changed.
But you are the same,
    and your years will never end” (Hebrews 1:8-12). 

Read from this perspective, then, Psalm 45 takes on a soaring perspective. Here, a thousand years in advance, Christ’s church, “the princess decked in her chamber,” extols the virtues of the God-man who will come “from ivory palaces” to wed her to himself. 

Revelation & the coming of the wrath. The Book of Revelation brings us to the third of three woes and to the seventh of seven trumpets. This is one of several times that this amazing book takes us to the very end of time, when all accounts get settled: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). The time of “judging the dead” and “for rewarding your servants” is simultaneously the time when “your wrath has come … and for destroying those who destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:18). This thought can be a troubling one, except when we realize that it is borne out of passion for the protection and the purity of the Bride whose wedding is in view throughout. Regard for her well-being, and disdain for all that defiles her and all of creation, flow from the same heart of divine love.  

Luke & the offer of wisdom & mercy. In an altogether similar vein, Jesus rebukes his fellow Galileans for failing to “see” (“Your eye is the lamp of the body”) what is really going on before their very eyes. Israel’s poignant story of love lost and then regained is being played out in their very presence. Indeed, it is standing right in front of them. In Jesus is a wisdom greater than that which the queen of the South had found in Solomon. In Jesus is a mercy greater than that which Jonah had offered the Ninevites. To paraphrase a parallel thought in John’s gospel: “The Groom is with the Bride. Don’t miss it!” (see John 3:29). 

Collect of the Day: Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; 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+

A Wedding Day - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday 10/28/2024 •

Proper 25

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 41; Psalm 52; Song of Songs 3:6-11; Revelation 11:1-14; Luke 11:14-26

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)

For our Old Testament reading last week, this week, and the next, I am treating the Song of Songs instead of the lectionary’s choice, Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Ben Sirach). Together, I hope we are discovering or rediscovering the wonder of this “Best of Songs.” Today’s portion is Song of Songs 3:6–11. 

Song of Songs: a wedding day. The scene in today’s verses from Song of Songs evokes the liturgical spectacle of one of Solomon’s seven hundred wedding ceremonies (see 1 Kings 11:3). The opening question is wrongly translated by the NRSV. The Hebrew is “Who is she coming from the wilderness, like a column of smoke?” (Song of Songs 3:6). The bride approaches just as Israel had emerged from the wilderness, accompanied by incense that recalls God’s presence in a cloud of smoke (Exodus 14:19-20; 40:36-38). The groom, with a wedding crown atop his head, receives her in his palanquin constructed of materials that recall the Temple in Jerusalem, and “inlaid with love.” With its inclusion in Scripture, the Song of Songs lays down a pattern whereby every wedding ceremony becomes a reenactment of God and his people entering into covenant. 

Image: Pixabay

Whether in a cathedral or in a city hall, every bride is a queen, every groom is a king. We all sense this truth, whatever cultural forces resist it, because God made us this way. 

Congruently, to belong to Christ is to be betrothed to him, and therefore to be in the process of becoming beautiful, toward the day in which we emerge from our own wilderness and are received into the chariot of love of our greater Solomon, the King of Peace. O happy day!

Luke: a consequential presence. In the synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus had announced his Messianic mission to set captives free (Luke 4:16-22). In today’s passage, he does just that. He releases a person from a demonic oppression that had left that person without a voice. Crowds are amazed when the formerly mute person speaks—something so fundamental to human flourishing has been restored! 

Jesus has indisputable powers. The question is: where do those powers come from? … from below? … or from above? Jesus warns that it is a fatal mistake to get this question wrong. His miracles are evidence of the reestablishing of God’s benevolent rule. To miss their meaning is to put oneself on the side of malevolence: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Luke 11:23). To fail to see Jesus’s life-giving miracles as coming from “the finger of God” is to commit a kind of spiritual suicide. In verses 24-26, Christ portrays his purging a person of evil as creating a kind of spiritual vacuum. That vacuum will be filled again, either by the Holy Spirit, or by spirits worse than what had been driven out in the first place. Lord, have mercy!

Revelation: a season of witness. It’s impossible to tease out the richness of the symbolism of Revelation 11 in just a few words. John is told to measure the temple, because it will be protected, while the outer courts will be trampled by the nations. It’s not the physical temple in Jerusalem that John measures, for that temple was destroyed in the Jewish War. Jesus’s coming as the true temple had made of the earthly Jerusalem’s temple an anachronism. Now his own body has become the source for the building of a Final Temple (John 1:21), made up of his people, whom Peter likens to “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5). 

This is the temple John measures. This temple, so John is being instructed, will be protected, while that which lies outside it will be destroyed during a limited, but intense, period of persecution. This season of persecution will be characterized by two things: witness and martyrdom. God will raise up witnesses whom he will empower with the same Spirit, who, under Moses, had turned water into blood and had struck the earth with plagues, and under Elijah  had “shut the sky” so that no rain would fall (Revelation 11:6). At the same time, there will be martyrdoms that have every appearance of being utter failures—but which will result in resurrection (Revelation 11:7-11). 

It’s important to keep in mind that Revelation’s story line is leading up to a wedding day—a wedding day not dissimilar to the one the Song of Songs describes in today’s reading. In the next chapter of Revelation, John will shift his image of the church from “temple” to “woman.” In the same way that the “temple” experiences protection while the “outer courts” are trampled, just so, the “woman” will be carried into the wilderness where the “dragon” will pursue her, while nature itself preserves her—for her wedding day. Stay tuned!

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Persevering at Jesus' Feet - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 10/25/2024 •

Proper 24

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 31; Song of Songs 3:1-5; Revelation 9:1-13 (and Saturday’s Revelation 10:1-11); Luke 10:38-42 (and Saturday’s Luke 11:1-11)

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)

For our Old Testament reading this week and the next two, I am treating the Song of Songs instead of the lectionary’s choice, Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Ben Sirach). Together, I hope we are discovering or rediscovering some of this “Best of Song’s” enchantment. Today’s portion is Song of Songs 3:1–5. 

Feeling love’s loss. I sought him whom my soul loves, I sought him but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer … I will seek him whom my soul loves — Song of Songs 3:1,3. Today’s verses in Song of Songs unfold as a mini-drama of love sought and love found. 

Night after night, our singer lies on her bed longing, longing, longing for “him whom my soul loves.” Her pining drives her (unwisely, no doubt!) into the nighttime streets. Happily she meets, not muggers, but the city’s “sentinels” or “watchmen” or “guardians” (Hebrew shomerim).  They have no answers as to the whereabouts of her lover. And, suddenly, he “whom my soul loves” appears. She clings to him, and he brings her to her mother’s home. And, as she had done in the previous chapter, she warns her friends not to awaken love before its time. 

The logic of the story is hard to follow—it reminds me of trying to narrate a dream. I suggest a more indirect and analogical approach. In this passage, the Targum imagined errant Israel feeling the loss of the presence of the One she was called to “love with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength.” Even “the sentinels/watchmen”—that is, Moses and the Levites, who are tasked, in Deuteronomy 33:9, with “guarding” (shameru) the people through teaching—even they can only point to the mercy of God. Only the return of the Presence will satisfy Israel’s longing. Only the Presence can bring Israel home.  

For Christian interpreters, our deepest longing has been answered—the Bridegroom has come. As Jesus says, in John 3:29, “He who has the bride is the bridegroom.” However, until Jesus returns for the consummation of Revelation 19’s Marriage Feast, there are long nights of the Christian’s longing, longing, longing. Blessed be the gracious God who provides songs (this “best of songs” and psalm upon psalm — e.g., Psalm 4, 31, 91, 139) for those nights. 

And, parenthetically, in the best and most satisfying of marriages, there are periods of separation, when there is longing, longing, longing. Keenly felt too are the yearnings of those called to singlehood, and those widowed or divorced. The Song of Songs meets us in whatever state of need for love our life finds us. 

We’re not always given the full picture. “Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down” — Revelation 10:4. Unfulfilled longings and unanswered questions are part of the Christian’s experience. Fearsome images announce destruction upon the earth in Revelation 8 & 9, in preparation for final judgment. Then in Revelation 10, just when the reader is expecting some explanations—what do the various symbols mean? when does all this take place?—we have a curious note. John is about to write down the meaning of seven thunders he has heard, only to be told: “Seal it up, and don’t write it down.” Then he is told that with “no more delay, … the mystery of God will be fulfilled, as he announced (euangelizesthai) to his servants the prophets” (Revelation 10:7). And as though that weren’t enough mystery, John is told to take a little scroll from an angel’s hand, and eat it: “it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth” (Revelation 10:10). Finally, he’s told he must resume prophesying about “peoples and nations and languages and kings” (Revelation 10:11). From this point on in Revelation (looking ahead for a moment), we will see the unfolding drama revolving around the contrasting destinies of the Bride of Christ (chapters 12 & 19) and the Whore of Babylon (Revelation 17 & 18). 

For all the speculation about its details that the Book of Revelation has brought in its wake, there are three simple messages Revelation wishes to convey:

1. Don’t write it down. We only get, and apparently only need, a limited amount of insight.
   
   

2. … it was sweet as honey in my mouth. Nonetheless, we know that God is working a “mystery” that is “good news.” Ultimately, there will be release from all the pain for “peoples and nations and languages and kings.” Telling that story of victory and offering the hope of the gospel brings sweetness to our mouth.
   
   

3. but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter. Until that victory, death, destruction, and decay are part of earth’s story, and thus, what God’s people must live through, right along with everybody else. 

Persevering at Jesus’s feet. “Ask … search … knock” — Luke 11:9. Mary’s desires are superior to Martha’s because, like the singer in “the best of songs,” she wants nothing more than to bask in the Presence and to hear the voice of “the one whom [her] soul loves.” Mary’s great privilege is to be in the room with the very One whom Israel’s “sentinels” had long awaited. 

What an apt follow-up is the subsequent section containing the Lord’s Prayer, and the Lord’s encouragement to persevere in prayer. Like Martha, we find life’s distractions (some important, some unimportant) pressing upon us. Unlike Mary, we don’t have the option of sitting physically at Jesus’s feet and listening to his physical voice. However, we have the profound words of the prayer he has left us. Furthermore, we have his promise that if we ask, search, and knock, we will find him faithful to give what we need, to be himself the end to our searching, and to open the door to his presence at our knocking.

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

An Enchanted Universe - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 10/24/2024 •

Proper 24

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 37:1-18; Song of Songs 2:8-17; Revelation 9:1-12; Luke 10:25-37

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

For our Old Testament reading this week and the next two, I am treating the Song of Songs instead of the lectionary’s choice, Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Ben Sirach). Together, I hope we are discovering or rediscovering some of this “Best of Song’s” enchantment. Today’s portion is Song of Songs 2:8–17. 

Wedged as it is in the English Bible between the Poets and the Prophets, the Song of Songs insists that biblical faith is hopelessly romantic. That is the Song’s chief gift. Biblical faith, asserts the Song, believes in the utter enthrallment of human lovers with one another (all evidence of love’s failures to the contrary). And it believes, by analogy, in the utter mutual delight that God and we take in one another (all evidence of “religion’s” or the synagogue’s or the church’s inadequacies to the contrary). 

…now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come — Song of Songs 2:12. Where love is, springtime always seems to break out. Senses become attuned not just to the sight, the sense, the sound, and the touch of the lover, but to everything else as well. In love’s presence, you notice things you had taken for granted before: stags and gazelles frolicking on the mountainside (if you are fortunate to live near majestic mountains!), doves in rock clefts, figs blossoming, the smell of a vine. The day seems to breathe, and nothing has to remain shadowed—everything is fresh, new, and innocent (2:17).   You and your beloved inhabit a renewed Eden where together you discover the innocent intimacy of a perfect love.

Biblical faith stubbornly inhabits an enchanted universe. In the face of divine love—to which the gift of human love has the ability to attune us—the heart sings, “all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres.” 

Featured in today’s portion of the Song are two things: his exuberant arrival, and her declaration of mutual exclusive possession. 

Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills — Song of Songs 2:8. Jewish commentator Michael Fishbane observes, “Just as a gazelle bounds from place to place, so has God come in successive manifestations on Israel’s behalf: to Egypt, to the Sea, and to Sinai. With this image, the people anticipate God’s immediate advent … and even beseech it….” Naturally enough, the Christian reader sees the “bounding” taking the Divine Lover all the way to Bethlehem. The Song of Songs evokes the joy that is anticipated each Advent and that breaks out every Christmas. As the Advent song of Tim Manion and the St Louis Jesuits puts it: “Leaping the mountains, bounding the hills, see how our God has come to meet us. His voice is lifted, his face is joy. Now is the season to sing our song on high.” 

Hard as it is for most of us to believe, I suspect, the Bible portrays God as eager to find you and me, to love us and to care for us. 

My beloved is mine and I am his — Song of Songs 2:16. Here the woman declares the mutual love between herself and her beloved. Again, from Fishbane: “This proclamation of mutuality (‘[he] is mine,’ li, and ‘[I] am his,’ lo) expresses the theological relationship between God and Israel.” In Scripture, the covenant-affirming voice is characteristically God’s: “I am your God, and you are my people” (Jeremiah 30:22; 31:1,33; Ezekiel 36:28). God as husband declares the covenant to be in effect. The prophet Hosea anticipates that when God has won his straying wife back and says to her, “You are (once again) my people,” she will (finally!) respond, “You are my God” (Hosea 2:23). Here in Song of Songs, the Bride gives voice to her unreserved commitment and her affection. No wonder this book is named “the best song”: it celebrates God and us in love with each other. 

Our Good Samaritan. It is impossible to say enough about the significance of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. It propels us to love our neighbor, regardless of who they are or where they come from. The astute reader realizes, however, that the Parable works its magic not so much by guilting us, as by inviting us to reflect on ourselves as having been sought out and found by the Divine Good Samaritan. The parable gets its full force when we see ourselves as half-dead on the side of the road, when our Good Samaritan is “moved with pity,” comes to us, bandages us, pours oil and wine on us (who can’t be reminded of Baptism and Eucharist?), brings us to a place of healing (who can’t think of the Church?), and makes sure that any price necessary to our healing is paid (who can’t think of the Cross?). 

A hymn by Ed Clowney memorably captures the logic of this parable of parables: 

You came to us, dear Jesus, in our dying, 

as broken, bleeding we could make no sign.
Compassion, Lord, brought you where we were lying,
to lift us up, to pour on oil and wine. 

You came to us, dear Jesus, in your dying;
your wounds poured love as blood upon the tree.
Compassion, Lord, from Calvary is crying,
“Bind up their wounds as you would do for me!” 

Because of the Advent of just such a Good Samaritan, the Song of Songs—“the best song”—becomes so wonderfully ours: “Look, he comes…” and “My beloved is mine and I am his.” 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

To Bring Christ's Bride Through It All - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 10/23/2024 •

Proper 24

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 38; Song of Songs 2:1-7; Revelation 8:1-13; Luke 10:17-24

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)

For our Old Testament reading this week and the next two, I am treating the Song of Songs instead of the lectionary’s choice, Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Ben Sirach). Together, I hope we are discovering or rediscovering some of this “Best of Song’s” enchantment. Today’s portion is Song of Songs 2:1–7. 

Love’s “already” and “not yet” in the Song of Songs. The best way to take today’s verses in Song of Songs, I think, is as a dreamlike reverie. Our female singer recalls an exchange of compliments between herself and her beloved: he has compared her to a lily among brambles, she has compared him to a fruit-bearing tree among plain forest trees that bear no fruit. She recalls his having set a lavish place for them in his “house of wine,” where he has even hung a banner proclaiming his love for her. As the RSV rightly renders 2:4: “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.” She recalls the overwhelming sensory delight of the food and of the wine … and of being held in his arms. 

But at the moment he is absent, though the text does not explain why. Nevertheless, the text takes us inside the ache that love’s touch has awakened in her. And she speaks to her female companions—whether literally or in her reverie: “By the heavens (“gazelles” and “wild does” are terms that in Hebrew look like euphemisms for “mighty ones” who make up the “army of hosts” of the Lord of hosts), don’t awaken love before its time.” 

This last note—this plaintiff, poignant yearning for love—becomes a theme in the Song of Songs. It will be sounded twice more in the Song of Songs—here at 2:7, and then also at 3:5 and 8:4. Each time, love’s yearning is answered by the arrival of the beloved (2:8; 3:6-7; 8:5). 

Jewish and Christian interpreters alike have found themselves irresistibly contemplating the “already” and “not yet” dynamic of God’s relationship with his people in these verses. The Targum (an Aramaic translation of the Bible) suggests that the “lovesickness” expressed in the Song refers to the longing of displaced Jewish people for their homeland; even so, sings Diaspora Israel, “I received the banner of His commandments over me with love.” For their part, Christians have known an Incarnate Lord who has healed the leper and the lame and the blind and the dead. Jesus has allowed his own body to be raised on a cross as a banner of God’s love. Now, even in the absence of his physical presence, he has promised to be nonetheless present by his Spirit at the Eucharistic Banqueting Table, where believers proclaim his death “until his coming again” (1 Corinthians 11:26). 

There is perhaps no better juxtaposition of love’s “already” and love’s “not yet” than in the pairing of today’s Gospel reading with today’s reading from Revelation. 

Love’s “already” in Luke. In Luke, the seventy whom Jesus has sent out return with such amazing reports of God’s healing power that they have seen demons submit to them. Jesus tells them that while they were ministering, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning” (Luke 10:18). And it’s altogether telling that Jesus reminds his disciples that the greater blessing by far is that their names are written in heaven—a place at the Table of the Messianic Banquet is more important than the level of power they manifest in this life. “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!” Here is love’s “already”—the kiss from heaven. “For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it” (Luke 10:23b-24).

Love’s “not yet” in Revelation. In Revelation 5, Jesus Christ, portrayed as the Lion of Judah who has been slain as a Lamb, comes forward as being the only one who is worthy to unroll the scrolls of history. In chapters 6 & 7, he unrolls the first six scrolls; and they tell a tale of judgment. That brings us to today’s reading of Revelation 8. In this chapter, there is a pregnant pause as Jesus opens the seventh seal: “there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour.” 

Something extraordinary happens during this half an hour. Judgment will continue; that is why seven trumpets are distributed to seven angels. But just then, before the blowing of the trumpets, an angel with a golden censer appears before the altar:

he was given a great quantity of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar that is before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth; and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake (Revelation 8:3b-5).

Ever since Revelation 6:10, the martyred saints have been crying out “How long?” before the Lord metes out justice on the earth. “How long” must the “not yet” of our redemption go on? Now, here in Revelation 8, we see that the prayers of the saints accompany the trumpets of judgment. In our further reading in Revelation, we shall see that God is sovereignly at work. He intends to bring final judgment against all that is evil and to bring Christ’s Bride through it all. And at one and the same time, what God is sovereignly and, I would submit, lovingly doing toward that end, he does in response to our prayers, rising upon the incense. 

Worship, once again, takes center stage for us. In the context of the Song of Songs, our participation in the Eucharist is a celebration of love that has already been shown us in Christ. In the context of Revelation, our participation in the ministry of prayer is an anticipation of love’s conquest of evil and the preparation of the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

The Lord's Love for His People - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 10/22/2024 •

Proper 24

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 26; Psalm 28; Song of Songs 1:9-17; Revelation 7:9-17; Luke 10:1-16

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)

For our Old Testament reading this week and the next two, I am treating the Song of Songs instead of the lectionary’s choice, Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Ben Sirach). Together, I hope we can discover or rediscover some of this “Best of Song’s” enchantment. Today’s portion is Song of Songs 1:9–17.

Love has its own reasons. I compare you, my love, to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots — Song of Songs 1:9. Some images in the Song are impenetrable to us nearly 3,000 years after the fact. This one, however, seems to be identifiable. Egyptian charioteers would make sure that all of their horses were stallions—that is, male horses. The danger of mixing in mares (female horses) is that, if perchance a mare came into season, chaos would ensue. In the song, the beloved (the male lover) says that he is so strongly attracted to the woman that his feelings are virtually uncontrollable. Her beauty is irresistible to him. 

For her part, her lover’s very scent (which she likens to nard, myrrh, and henna) takes her to a garden spot—to an oasis (which is what En-Gedi is) in the wilderness, she says, or to a forest of pungent pines and cedars. It’s as though, when they are together, Eden has been recreated. They can explore a rediscovered innocence and delight in each other. 

Jewish and Christian interpreters were convinced that this bracing paean to human love is in the Bible because it bears meaning for divine love as well. Believing that the Temple’s sights and smells (cedar and incense) were designed as a sensory recalling of the Garden of Eden, these interpreters (and I think with good reason) ask us to imagine the place of worship as a place in which the Lord and his people express their “takenness” with each other. 

Odd as it may sound at first, there’s something about the Lord’s love for his people that is beyond rational calculation and covenantal obligation. In Deuteronomy, the only accounting that Yahweh is able to give for his fondness for his people is: “I love you because I love you” (Deuteronomy 7:8). In terms of the Song, the Lord is like the stallion who discovers a mare among the chariots. Conversely, what is to be called up from us, his people, involves, of course, discipline of will and formation of mind—but at bottom, it is “love,” something that is more visceral, something that is irresistibly attracted to what the psalmist calls “the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 96:9). That’s something that strikes me every time I walk into the Cathedral where it is my privilege to worship, and breathe in the incense-laden air from decades of worship there. 

The glory of worship. Amen! Blessing and honor and glory…! Amen! — Revelation 7:12. The Book of Revelation is brutally honest about the devastation and suffering that Planet Earth suffers on the way to its final, complete, redemption. But it is terribly important to remember all along that the story line is moving toward consummation: toward the Marriage Feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19) and toward a New Jerusalem under New Heavens and on a New Earth (Revelation 21-22). It is equally important to remember that all along the way to that consummation, the people of the Lamb anticipate it with exuberant, lavish, loving praise, as in today’s reading from Revelation. We worship as though that which is “not yet” (the end of death and decay and suffering) were “already.” 

Revelation’s perspective is precisely that of the Song of Songs, where the consummation of love is both longed for (from tomorrow’s reading: “do not stir or awaken love until it is ready”—2:8) and already experienced (again, from tomorrow’s reading: “he brought me to the banqueting house”—2:4). 

Herein lies the glory of worship. Because our Shepherd-Husband will one day “guide us to the springs of the water of life” (Revelation 7:17), we submit in the “now” to the waters of baptismal cleansing. Because one day we “will hunger no more, and thirst no more” (Revelation 7:16), we taste already the Bread and the Wine. And because in the day of the great settling of accounts “God will wipe away every tear from our eyes,” even our funeral services become forward-looking celebrations of resurrection. As the Prayer Book says, “Yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

The Best of Songs - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 10/21/2024 •

Proper 24

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 25; Song of Songs 1:1-7; Revelation 7:1-8; Luke 9:51-62

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)

For our Old Testament reading during the next three weeks, I will be treating the Song of Songs instead of the lectionary’s choice, Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Ben Sirach). Together, I hope we can discover or rediscover its enchantment. Today’s portion is Song of Songs 1:1–7. 

Song of Songs 1:2-4: Love & desire. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine — Song of Songs 1:2. These are not the sort of words with which one expects a book of the Bible to begin, are they? But they are a marvelous keynote for this “best of songs”: the main voice throughout this book will be that of a woman who yearns for the loving embrace of her beloved. 

“There is something dreamy about these opening lines of the Song,” says Old Testament scholar Ilana Pardes (The Song of Songs: A Biography, p. 1). If you can read Hebrew, you will recognize the luscious “sh” sound predominating in the first two lines; in the opening paragraph, the voice vacillates between the woman’s speaking of her lover in the third person, and her addressing him in the second person; we are never quite sure exactly where we are, as the scene changes from intimate, private space to outdoor, festive space; we aren’t quite sure either whether her lover is an actual king, or whether her love makes him seem like one. As Pardes says, “It is a dream zone—nothing is completely discernable—everything is deeply felt.” 

Going forward in our study, I’m OK with that. “Everything is deeply felt.” That is one of the primary take-aways from this book. Those of us who have been around church long enough have been taught that biblical love is agape-love, and that agape-love is primarily about “giving” and not “feeling” (or eros-love). According to Song of Songs, it’s not quite that simple. Biblical love—love between a woman and a man, and love between us and our Lord—feels deeply. To be sure, deep feeling gives deeply as well. But deep feeling feels deeply—and that is good. Because God made deep feelings good. 

Song of Songs 1:4-8 — Love & eyes wide open. I am very dark but comely … my mother’s sons were angry with me … my own vineyard I have not kept — Song of Songs 1:5,6 (RSV). The woman who is the primary singer in our Song has been deeply wounded by her family, and she also acknowledges some sort of failing on her part. Her skin is deeply tanned, which in her world is not a sign of leisured beauty. In her case, it is a sign of being reduced to the degradation of laboring in the fields. Nor, for her part, is she free from fault: “my own vineyard I have not kept.”

A second take-away from this “best of songs” is that love loves with eyes wide open. There will be several phrases in this song that speak of love’s intoxicating power (2:5; 4:9; 5:1,8), but in this book, love is always cognizant of imperfections. At the human level, often the beloved’s imperfections become the things that the lover finds most attractive. 

In his biography of Ulysses S. Grant, author Ron Chernow narrates a conversation between Grant and his wife Julia, who had grown up cross-eyed. As Grant began to become more and more a public figure, Julia, fearing that her “so very, very plain” appearance would hamper their public life, wanted to have surgery to straighten her eyes. Ulysses would have none of it: “Did I not see you and fall in love with you with these same eyes? I like them just as they are, and now, remember, you are not to interfere with them. They are mine, and let me tell you, Mrs. Grant, you had better not make any experiments, as I might not like you half so well with any other eyes.” Chernow concludes, “The anecdote, as well as many others, attests to the depth of Grant’s unconditional love for his wife, and vice versa” (Grant, p. 332).  

Love is a place of deep feeling and of deep giving because it is first of all a place of deep grace. For her part, Mrs. Grant—and Mr. Grant’s best friends—loved him through, and in spite of, his debilitating alcoholism. And it was their love that fortified him in his struggle. 

Christ loves us not because we are without fault. In fact, it is to us in our tragic fallenness that he has drawn near. And we bless him for it. As the ancient church sang in the darkness of Holy Saturday’s Great Vigil:

O truly needful sin of Adam which was blotted out by the death of Christ!

O happy fault (“felix culpa”) which merited so great a Redeemer!

Our love for Christ is infinitely and forever sweeter by virtue of the fact that he comes not for the lovely but for the unlovely, not for the perfect but for the imperfect. He not only comes to forgive, he comes to unite himself to us, and in doing so to turn our tragedy to comedy, our ugliness to beauty, our humiliation to glory. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!

Revelation 7: A perfected Israel. As providence would have it, our reading of Song of Songs will parallel the Book of Revelation’s account of the way God works to draw a people together from Israel and the nations, forms them as the Bride of Christ, protects them, and purifies them for the Marriage Feast of the Lamb (chapters 7 through 19). 

In today’s reading, we see that God’s ultimate plan is to rescue 144,000 “of the people of Israel.” I submit to you that this is a figurative number—a number of love’s perfection, not of arbitrary exclusion. It is the square of 12 (12 being the number of Israel’s tribes) multiplied by 1,000 (1,000 being a number of magnitude), and is John’s way of referring to what Paul calls in his epistle to the Romans “the fullness of [the Jews]” (Romans 11:12). Paul balances out “the fullness of the Jews” with “the fullness of the Gentiles” in Romans 11:25. Just so, John’s 144,000 Jews receives its complement in the last half of Revelation 7 (tomorrow’s reading) with a countless throng from every nation and tribe and people and tongue “standing before the throne and the Lamb” (v. 9). 

Between the first and second halves of Revelation 7, we get the dual mystery of God’s great plan: he elects perfectly, and does so with an expansive heart. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!

Luke 9: Sublime resolution. When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem — Luke 9:51. Luke so finely balances a sense of God’s perfect timing (“when the days drew near”) with the resolution it took Jesus to carry out his mission (“he set his face”). And there’s also the fine balance between the horror we know the upcoming crucifixion to be and the way Luke refers to the end of the mission to be Christ’s being taken up into glory (“for him to be taken up”). Also finely balanced is the implicit message to the apostles to “let it be” when people reject them, and thus him (“But he turned and rebuked them”), and his “all or nothing” call to follow him (“No one who puts a hand to the plow…”). What a wonderful Redeemer, bringing a wonderful redemption. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Yearning for Love - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 10/18/2024 •
Proper 23 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 16; Psalm 17; Song of Songs (overview); Acts 28:1-16; Luke 9:28-36 

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) 

Special note with regard to the Old Testament. During the next three weeks, I will be treating the Song of Songs instead of the lectionary’s choice, Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Ben Sirach). Despite the canonical status of the Song of Songs, and despite the fact that it was one of the biblical books that ancient and medieval believers (both Jewish and Christian) found most fascinating and fruitful, people in the modern era have ignored it for the most part. The Daily Office lectionary finds no place for it in the two-year cycle of Old Testament readings. Since this year’s cycle is one in which we read Song of Songs’ sister books in the wisdom tradition (Ecclesiastes and Job), I decided to dive into it. I hope you and I will be able to discover or rediscover its enchantment.  

The Bible calls the book the “Song of Songs,” that is, “the best song.” This is a song about yearning for love. There’s much to yearn for in our world—it’s as though we are in an extended season of yearning. We yearn for freedom from disease and from uncertainty about public health. We yearn for the laying down of arms between nations. We yearn for civility in the public square. We yearn for liars to lay down their pens, to walk away from their keyboards, and to turn off their microphones. We yearn for racial reckoning and reconciliation. We yearn for safe streets and safe schools and safe churches and synagogues. We yearn for the end of domestic violence and drug addiction. We yearn for the realization of medieval English mystic Julian of Norwich’s promise: “all shall be well.” Above all we yearn for the return of love.  

Image: Adaptation, "#ItsLiverpool banners - Port of Liverpool Building, Mann Island & Museum of Liverpool" by ell brown is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Especially during this season of yearning, I’d offer this book of the Bible as genuinely “the best song.” Song of Songs teaches us to sing, amid everything that is wrong in the world: “I’m my Beloved’s and he is mine. His banner over me is love” (Song of Songs 2:4).  

Even before Christians came along, people in the Jewish community knew to read this Song at two levels. On the first level, the Song of Songs is—gloriously!—a full throated anthem in praise of conjugal, even of sensual, love between a man and a woman. Over the centuries, commentators—Jewish and Christian—have debated as to the exact scenario being depicted. By far the majority of commentators suggest we are witness to a celebration between two lovers: a Solomon-like, shepherd-king-husband and a Shulamite (probably a play on Solomon’s name), queenly wife. Coming from the God who made man and woman to come together as “one flesh,” there’s plenty to relish in a song that leads with “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine.”  

Beyond that, though, from Day One, readers—or singers!—of this song have sensed that there’s more at play in this “best of songs” than merely its surface meaning. In the first century AD, Rabbi Akiba said, “Whoever trills the Song of Songs in banquet halls—and treats it as a mere lyric—has no share in the world to come” (Targum Sanhedrin 12.10). Indeed, he maintains, the “whole world is not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel for all the Writings are holy and the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies” (Mishnah Yadayim 3.5).  

Jewish interpreters saw a second level of meaning in the Song of Songs: a meditation on the prophets’ theme of Yahweh as husband and his people as bride (Hosea 1-3; Jeremiah 2-3; 31:32; Ezekiel 16; Isaiah 50:1; 54:5-6). They read this “best of songs” as a love song between God and his people. When they read “I am my beloved’s and he is mine,” they could not help but hear resonances of “I will be your God and you will be my people.” And in their wake, Christian interpreters heard a song in praise of the love between Christ, i.e., God-as-Groom-in-the Flesh, and his Bride, the Church (John 3:29; 2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5:21-33; Revelation 19).  

As we explore this “best of songs” together in the next three weeks, I pray for you a renewed sense that Christ, our Heavenly Bridegroom, loves you intimately, tenderly, and persistently. And I pray for you a certain “sacramental cast” to all your relationships here on earth, that they would all be consecrated to the Lord. This “best song” teaches us to guard all relationships—and especially those of intimacy—to cherish them, to preserve them, and to be wholeheartedly and unreservedly given to them.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Trustworthy and Beautiful - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 10/17/2024 •
Proper 23 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 18:1-20; Jonah 3:1-10; 4:1-11; Acts 27:27-44; Luke 9:18-27 

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) 

As you finish this reading of Jonah, I hope you will appreciate these four points the book makes. They have struck me in a fresh way.  

God appoints. The Lord appoints “a large fish” (1:17). The Lord God appoints “a bush” (4:6). God appoints “a worm” (4:7). God appoints (even though NRSV uses a different word, the Hebrew does not) “a sultry east wind” (4:8). Throughout the story, God is orchestrating things according to his will. That’s what the Bible’s God does: orchestrate. As Creator and Lord of the entire universe, he works all things according to his good pleasure.  

We may not always be able to discern God’s hand. Indeed, it’s almost as though Jonah resists discerning God’s hand. I’m sure I do the same. But the hand is always there. And the way of wisdom is to look for, and to be ready to yield to, that hand.  

God is merciful. The portrait of Jonah in this account is intended, I am sure, to serve as an unflattering mirror for a proud and self-important Israel. The pathetic picture of Jonah stands in complete contrast to the very nature of the God who has revealed himself as Yahweh, the “I AM,” who pities and delivers the enslaved, and who then calls upon those so delivered to extend his pity to others.  

When Jonah finally does go to Nineveh to deliver his prophetic message, he pronounces only doom, nothing else: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4—the message is even more concise in the original, consisting of but five Hebrew words). There’s no call for repentance. No hint of there being any “out.” Just five words of doom and gloom. It’s the Ninevites themselves—led by their king—who, “believing God,” take it upon themselves to fast, to put on sackcloth, and to “turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands” (Jonah 3:9). All this, just in case God might have a change in heart: “Who knows? God may relent and change his mind?” (Jonah 3:9).  

Know what? God did “change his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it” (Jonah 3:10). I’m pretty sure the point isn’t to present a logical puzzle—i.e., how can a sovereign God who has ordered all things from the beginning of time be induced to change his mind? I’m pretty sure the point is to shine a light on the essentially merciful nature of God. As the Prayer Book’s Prayer of Humble Access puts it: “But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy.” God is, as Jonah begrudgingly (!) acknowledges: “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing” (Jonah 4:2).  

Never forget that. Never, ever, ever.  

God cares about his whole creation. Doesn’t it catch your eye that the Ninevite king decrees that animals as well as humans shall fast in repentance, and that along with humans, “animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God” (Jonah 3:7-8)? That’s a clue to a larger theme in Jonah. Puzzled as to the reason for the storm that has come upon them, the sailors ask Jonah who he is and where he comes from. He answers: “I am a Hebrew. … I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land” (Jonah 1:9). Yahweh, the Lord of heaven and the earth and the seas, puts in play a storm, a fish, a bush, and a worm to accomplish his purposes. And the sackcloth-covered animals are a nice touch in demonstration of “creation’s groaning” while it waits to be “set free from its bondage to decay and … [to] obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).  

In his notes in the New Interpreter’s Study Bible, Kenneth M. Craig, Jr., sagely observes:  

By the book’s end, the Lord emerges as a God of compassion, for Jonah and his people, to be sure, but also for other peoples and for animals. The book’s concluding rhetorical question—“Should I [the Lord] not be concerned about Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons … and also many animals?”—deals less with repentance and more with creation (animals and humanity).  

God delights in the beautiful. All these truths could be set out as cold propositional statements. In the Book of Jonah, though, they take the most artful form. Again, this from Kenneth Craig: 

The tale of Jonah is one of the Bible’s literary gems. Marked by symmetry, balance, word-play, irony, and surprise, the book purports to teach Jonah (and all readers) about the problem of a gracious acceptance for one’s own people (“Deliverance is from the Lord,” Jonah says in 2:9) while churlishly resenting similar treatment for others (4:1-5).  

The book is one of the most delightful reads in all of Scripture. Take time, if you are able, to read back through it, looking for:  

• parallels (e.g., the ship captain in chapter 1, and the Ninevite king in chapter 3; or “Perhaps the god will spare us a thought” in 1:6, and “Who knows? God may relent…” in 3:9),  

• irony (e.g., creation and even the Ninevites respond to God more appropriately than his prophet),  

• and even “Easter eggs” anticipating the coming of Christ (e.g., salvation-via-drowning, three days and nights in a kind of grave).  

May Jonah, through his hard-earned lessons, teach us that God is both absolutely trustworthy and consummately beautiful. “O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 96:9 KJV).  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

A Fresh Start Because of a Fish - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 10/16/2024 •
Proper 23 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:1-24; Jonah 1:17-2:10; Acts 27:9-26; Luke 9:1-17 

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) 

In today’s readings both the runaway prophet Jonah and the future apostle Paul experience rescue for the sake of mission.  

Jonah: from “the belly of Sheol.” “Where can I flee from your presence?” asks the psalmist. “If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there,” he says, answering his own question (Psalm 139:7b,8b). Death itself is no barrier to the God who is determined to know, to claim, to fellowship with … to love. For his part, Jonah has done everything he can to get away from God. Three times, yesterday’s reading notes that Jonah flees “from the presence of God” (Jonah 1:3 [twice], 10). Jonah’s flight carries him down, down, down: “down” to Joppa to find a boat to take him to Tarshish, “down” into the hold of the ship to escape into slumber, and finally down “into” the sea (Jonah 1:3,5,15).  

Right there, as low as he can go, as far away from God as he can seem to get, Jonah comes face to face with the God he can’t escape—right there in the belly of a great fish. Right there in what he calls “the belly of Sheol,” the belly of death. There he learns to bless the God from whom there is no escape. There Jonah learns that God hears from his “holy temple” (Jonah 2:4,7).  

Image: Pieter Lastman , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Having hit bottom, Jonah learns to cry out: “I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice” (Jonah 2:2). The hinge of the entire book of Jonah lies at 2:6: “… I went down… yet you brought me up.” As a result, the fish whose belly should have been the end of Jonah becomes instead the end of an old Jonah and the beginning of a new Jonah. A means of death becomes the means of life. Small wonder Jesus likens Jonah’s three days and three nights to his own: “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). Small wonder also that generations of Christians have seen a picture of Jonah’s and their baptisms in Jonah’s symbolic death in the belly of the fish and his symbolic resurrection when he is “spewed out upon the dry land” (Jonah 2:10).  Saved by a fish. Praise be.  

Acts: hope in the storm. “… we finally gave up all hope of being saved” — Acts 27:20. Emerging from his “baptism,” Jonah still has a lot to learn about the God who has loved him and saved him.  God loves and has saving designs on people who are “other” to Jonah (who nevertheless is still not ready to see God’s mercy extended to the Ninevites). Not so with Paul. Paul rises from his own baptism, scales removed from his eyes, ready to take the good news of Christ as Messiah, Savior, and Lord, to Jew and Greek alike, and see lives changed. As he describes it, Jesus’s call to Paul includes his being sent “to open [Gentiles’] eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and 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).  

As a result, when everybody else on the storm-tossed ship headed for Rome has lost hope (including Paul’s friend and companion in ministry, Luke, who numbers himself among the despairing with his “we finally gave up”) Paul is able to speak hope to the hopeless. He speaks calm in the storm: “I urge you now to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship.” He narrates the appearance of an angel who promises that Paul’s mission will be carried out and that there will be safety for all on the ship. Paul continues, “So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. But we will have to run aground on some island” (Acts 27:22,25-26). And so it shall be in tomorrow’s reading.  

For today, I pray for you and me a Jonah prayer and a Paul prayer. I pray for us the assurance that in the lowest of our lows—even when it’s a low we have fully brought upon ourselves—the grace of God is already there, ready to hear, ready to lift up. And I pray for you and for me calm amid any storm: fixed purpose, indominable courage, and an irresistible love for the things and the people the Lord loves.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+