Jesus Is King - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 11/29/2024 •

Proper 29 Year 2

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 140; Psalm 142; Zechariah 14:1-11; Romans 15:7-13; Luke 19:28-40 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday of Proper 29 in Year 2 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Today’s Daily Devotion closes the Christian year. Advent begins this Sunday, marking the beginning of the New Year in the Christian calendar. Our readings invite reflection of God’s Kingdom—its inauguration, its continuation, and its consummation (with thanks to my friend Richard Pratt for the terminology).  

Luke: Inauguration of the Kingdom. Luke’s account of Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem plays a part in the inauguration of Jesus as King. Just as Zechariah 9 had prophesied, he comes humbly, mounted on a donkey. As Jesus approaches Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives he is met by a carpet of cloaks and by greetings of “Blessed is the king!” and “Peace in heaven!” and “Glory in the highest heaven!” Nonetheless, this phase of Jesus’s kingship will involve a crown of thorns, a mocking purple robe, and a reed for a scepter. That is why, in the verses immediately following today’s, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem: “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!” (Luke 19:41). He knows that rejection and suffering await him, and that destruction lies ahead for Jerusalem, “because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God” (Luke 19:44).  

Nonetheless, Jesus’s coming is indeed the time of God’s visitation in peace—his rejection, his sufferings, and his crucifixion will result in the inauguration of the kingdom of God. Beautifully, if ironically, the greetings from the crowd at Jesus’s triumphal entry recall the angels’ song at the nativity: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” (Luke 2:14). Jesus’s redeeming death, his victorious resurrection, and his crowning ascension will bring in an era in which God’s peace will be announced on the earth and God will receive glory through the growth of the church.  

Romans: Continuation of the Kingdom. Like perhaps nobody else, the apostle Paul understands the time in which we live. It is a time when the Kingdom, having been established by Jesus’s earthly ministry, continues now through the proclamation of the good news of the forgiveness of sins and of God’s welcome of Jew and Gentile alike. This “between time”—between the Kingdom’s inauguration at Jesus’s first coming and the Kingdom’s consummation at his second—is a time characterized by hope, joy, peace, and faith: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).  

Zechariah: Consummation of the Kingdom. Zechariah foresees the day when “hope” and “faith” are no longer necessary, and when “joy” and “peace” abound for God’s faithful—a day when Jesus returns in all his might, and when God’s Kingdom is finally consummated.  

Zechariah foresees the Mount of Olives, once the staging area of Jesus’s humble entry into Jerusalem, as the place where the Lord descends to fight for his embattled people, when “his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives … and [it] shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley” (Zechariah 14:4). 

What Zechariah pictures with vivid imagery is a reality he sees from quite some distance (and we still stand at some unknown distance from it as well!). What he sees is the descent of the returning conquering King Jesus, who brings “all the holy ones” (Zechariah 14:5—that is, the dead in Christ and his angelic army) to deliver a final death blow to sin, to evil, to Satan, and to death itself (see Revelation 19 and 20).  

And what Zechariah predicts—“”Jerusalem shall remain aloft on its site … Jerusalem shall abide in security”—will prove to be “the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,” descending to be the place where God takes up his abode with his people on “a new earth” under “a new heaven” (Revelation 21 and 22).  

What Zechariah sees as “living waters” flowing out from Jerusalem, the Book of Revelation will see as the new Jerusalem’s “river of life” which will nourish trees that produce fruit and leaves “for the healing of the nations” (Zechariah 14:8; Revelation 22:1-2).  

Finally, what Zechariah sees most accurately is that the consummation of the Kingdom proves once and for all the singularity and sovereignty of Israel’s God: “And the Lord will become king over all the earth; on that day the Lord will be one and his name one” (Zechariah 14:9).  

No matter what turbulence or uncertainty we may be facing right now, Jesus is King! Jesus became King when first he came; he is King for us right now; and he will return in power and great glory as the world’s true King, on the day appointed by his Father and ours.  

Be blessed this—and every—day! 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Jesus Exercises Headship Over All for the Church - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 11/28/2024 •

Proper 29 Year 2

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 131; Psalm 132; Zechariah 13:1-9; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 19:11-27 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Thursday of Proper 29 in Year 2 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Happy Thanksgiving! It so happens that today’s readings in Zechariah and Ephesians recount profound reasons for the giving of thanks.  

Zechariah. The apostle Peter describes the prophets of the Old Testament “looking and searching so hard” to try to understand the future salvation that was being revealed through them. Peter says that they had been given sketches of “the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would come after them.” As a result, the prophets “tried to find out at what time and in what circumstances all this was to be expected” (1 Peter 1:10-11 Jerusalem Bible).  

One of the prophetic passages Peter must have had in mind is this one from today’s reading in Zechariah: “Strike the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered” (Zechariah 13:7b). Jesus Christ had quoted it to Peter and the rest of the disciples as they arrived at the Garden of Gethsemane, in anticipation of his arrest. And Peter, being Peter, protested its applicability to him: “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away” (Matthew 27:30-33). This is fresh off their leaving the Upper Room, where Jesus had prophesied Peter’s betrayal. Yes, I’m pretty sure Peter recalled this passage in Zechariah.  

Five hundred years in advance, Zechariah provides a staggering constellation of previews of the Messiah’s sufferings and glories: 

• “humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9)—think of Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:5) 

• a new exodus “through the sea of distress…and the scepter of Egypt shall depart” (Zechariah 10:11)—think of God calling Jesus “out of Egypt” (Matthew 2:13-15) 

• “thirty shekels of silver thr[own] into the treasury in the house of the Lord” (Zechariah 11:12-13) — think of the price for Judas Iscariot’s betrayal (Matthew 27:3-10) 

• weeping and mourning “as over a firstborn,” when “they look on the one whom they have pierced” (Zechariah 12:10) — think of the spear in Jesus’s side (John 19:34) 

• God’s pouring out “a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem”—think of Pentecost in Act 2 

Add to these passages, of course, today’s reference to the sheep being scattered when the shepherd is struck. As we saw above, Jesus sees here an anticipation of his disciples being “scattered” at his arrest.  

But then read Zechariah more deeply. The previous chapter’s “piercing” from yesterday’s reading (Zechariah 12:10) has led to the opening of a fountain “to cleanse them from sin and impurity” (Zechariah 13:1). Five hundred years later, the apostle John notes that from Jesus’s pierced side flow blood and water: “[O]ne of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out” (John 19:34). Thus, the hymnist William Cowper writes, “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins. And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.” Amen! 

But wait, there’s more! Zechariah 13 goes on to describe a winnowing process by which idolatry is eliminated, false prophets are exposed, God’s remnant is refined like gold, and the covenant is renewed: “I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God’” (Zechariah 13:2-9). The passage anticipates the full sweep of the Holy Spirit’s work during the gospel age in which we have been living since Pentecost.  

Ephesians. The apostle Paul’s magnificent prayer in Ephesians 1:15-23 arises out of his awe at living in this gospel age. Paul is overwhelmed that “all things” have been laid at the resurrected Jesus’s feet. Perhaps even more amazing to Paul is the fact that Jesus—Lord of the whole universe—exercises this headship over “all things” for the sake of and in the interest of the church (Ephesians 1:22)!  

The thrust, then, of Paul’s prayer is that God opens “the eyes of our hearts” to see how these wonderful truths are true for us. That means for me! That means for you! I pray that in spite of all the things in our lives, and in our world, that make it difficult to see the depth of God’s riches for us and the extent of his love for us, that Paul’s prayer will nonetheless prevail for each one of us. I pray that, as Paul will pray later in this letter, “you will know the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18-19).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

We Have Been Lovingly Chosen - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 11/27/2024 •

Proper 29 Year 2

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:145-176; Zechariah 12:1-10; Ephesians 1:3-14; Luke 19:1-10 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Wednesday of Proper 29 in Year 2 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Zechariah foresees a distant day when Judah and Jerusalem will once again be besieged, as they had been by the Babylonians who had decimated and exiled them. This next time, however, God’s people will prevail over their enemies. They will do so, however, after they mourn and weep over “the one [literally, “me”—i.e., the Lord] whom they have pierced” (Zechariah 12:10). God will pour out his Spirit—“a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem”—in such a way as to prompt deeply repentant faith. As a result, Zechariah envisions God making them mighty, invincible warriors.  

It is possible that Zechariah is given a window into the gigantic cataclysm at the end of time, a day that is still ahead of us. It is possible, also, that his vision sheds light on the events immediately surrounding Jesus’s death and resurrection, his ascension, and the outpouring of the Spirit, beginning with Pentecost in Jerusalem.  

Indeed, in today’s reading in the letter to the Ephesians, Paul, zealous Jew that he is, numbers himself among “those who were the first to set our hope on Christ,” and who are now living “for the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:12). If you were to ask Paul, he would readily acknowledge that he had come to “mourn and weep over the One he had pierced” (Zechariah 12:10). Though he never puts it in exactly those words, nonetheless Paul believes that sheerly by God’s “grace” (i.e, undeserved favor), he has been granted insight into the mystery of God’s will to sum up “all things” in Christ through the “redemption in his blood” (Ephesians 1:6-7).  

Further, Paul believes that he has been called to recruit Gentiles (like the majority of the people to whom he writes in his letter to the Ephesians) to receive the same “seal of the promised Holy Spirit” that he has received, and to become a part of “God’s own people, to the praise of his name” (Ephesians 1:13-14). Even though he writes this letter from prison, Paul sees himself and his fellow believers invincibly and irresistibly demonstrating to “the powers and principalities” God’s victory (Ephesians 3:8-10). Through the gospel of Jesus Christ, God is sovereignly and lovingly making dead people alive (Ephesians 2:1-10), and inexorably building formerly estranged people into a spiritual house for his own dwelling (Ephesians 2:11-22).  

To me, one of the most striking features of this paragraph from Paul (in Greek, it’s really just one long sentence) is the repetition of the prepositional phrase: “in Christ” (or “in the Beloved” or “in him”). This expression occurs eleven times in the Greek (nine times in the NRSV). The phrase “in Christ” evokes the image of us being held tightly in the embrace of Jesus’s strong arms: there we have been lovingly chosen, there we find blessing, there we find redemption (the forgiveness of sins through Christ’s blood), there we are adopted, there we know God’s good pleasure, there we receive an inheritance, there we are marked by the Holy Spirit as God’s own. There, in Christ, is total and utter security. Amen! 

Somehow, even before he met Jesus, Luke’s Zaccheus sensed that in Jesus he might find just that sort of security, acceptance, and love. As a super-rich chief tax collector, he must have had many “friends” by virtue of mutual gift-giving and ties of benefaction. Think of the world of Francis Ford Coppola’s movie The Godfather. That’s how the social world of wealth worked in Zaccheus’s day. But did he have any real friends—who loved him simply for who he was? Doubtful. As Jesus approaches, we notice that no one in the crowd moves aside so that Zaccheus can catch a glimpse of Jesus. Labeled “sinner” by everybody (Luke 19:7), his relationships would have been calculated, cautious, and measured. But he senses that with Jesus, things just might be different. And so the “wee little man” climbs the now celebrated sycamore tree, “for the Lord he wanted to see.” See the Lord he does. More importantly, Jesus sees him. Really sees him!  

To Zaccheus’s surprise, Jesus invites himself to dinner. There, in one of the greatest conversion stories of the Bible, Zaccheus, small of stature, becomes a friend of Jesus and a giant of generosity. Proving himself to be, after all, a true son of Abraham, Zaccheus gives half his wealth to the poor and promises restitution (with interest) to any whom he has defrauded. Zaccheus takes his place, to put it in Paul’s terms, “in Christ.” There’s no better place to be.  

Be blessed this day,  in Christ.

Reggie Kidd+ 

All Things Are Yours - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 11/26/2024 •

Proper 29 Year 2

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

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Tuesday of Proper 29 in Year 2 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reggie Kidd+ 

Zechariah's Visions - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 11/25/2024 •

Proper 29 Year 2

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

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Monday of Proper 29 in Year 2 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

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

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

Zechariah lived through the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple, following Judah’s release from the Babylonian Captivity. There was joy in Judah, but it was muted. There was a new temple, but its grandeur and scale were not as glorious as the temple Solomon had built nearly a half millennium earlier. There was a sort of self-governance, but the Persians were really in charge, and Judah was permitted no king.  

What has happened to God’s promise to establish his Kingdom on earth through his people Israel? What of the promise to David that one from his line would sit on the throne in perpetuity? What about the picture of a united people of God under David and Solomon, before the split into a northern kingdom (Israel) and a southern kingdom (Judah)? Was that vision gone forever? Zechariah (along with his contemporary, the prophet Haggai) provided perspective. 

In the previous chapter of Zechariah, the prophet had foretold Palm Sunday, when Israel’s triumphant King would come “humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9). In today’s chapter, Zechariah imagines the Lord raising up “warriors in battle” to reunite the Israel in the north (Joseph) and Judah in the south: “I will bring them back because I have compassion on them, and they shall be as though I had not rejected them” (Zechariah 10:6). Zechariah foresees a new exodus experience for God’s people: “They shall pass through the sea of distress … and all the depths of the Nile dried up … Assyria shall be laid low …the scepter of Egypt shall fall” (Zechariah 10:11).  

As though squinting to see something way off on the horizon of history, Zechariah espies the contours of the new exodus Christ will accomplish by the baptism of his own death and resurrection. Zechariah also discerns in the distance the reunification of the Lord’s people. By the pouring out of his Spirit, God will bring about the conquest of the nations, enabling Christ’s apostles to take the gospel from Jerusalem and Judea (the old southern kingdom) to Samaria (the old northern kingdom) and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).  

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

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

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

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

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

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

• restoring transgressors,  

• bearing one another’s burdens,  

• individually testing our own work,  

• supporting our leaders,  

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

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

 Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

A Good Time for Redemptive Self-Inventory - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 11/22/2024 •

Proper 28 Year 2

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 102; Malachi 3:1-12; James 5:7-12; Luke 18:1-8 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd, and every Monday through Friday, I offer devotional observations on some portion of that day’s readings for Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. Thanks so much for joining me this Friday of Proper 28 in Year 2 of the Daily Lectionary.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Has Not One God Created Us? - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 11/21/2024 •

Proper 28 Year 2

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

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd, and every Monday through Friday, I offer devotional observations on some portion of that day’s readings for Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. Thanks for joining me this Thursday of Proper 28 in Year 2 of the Daily Lectionary.  

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

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

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

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

God’s oneness and ours. “Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another…? … [S]he is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did not one God make her?” — Malachi 2:10,15. Extraordinarily, Malachi anticipates the apostle Paul’s perspective on the way belief in the “oneness” of God shapes our ethical lives. In the letter to the Romans, Paul shows that, as a Jew who believes that there is “one God,” he finds it inconceivable that there would be different routes to a relationship with God—for example, one for the Jew and another for the Gentile.  

God is not the deity of separate tribes. He is the God of heaven and earth. Therefore, he has one plan for a singular redemption of the entire human race: his Son Jesus Christ. “Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith” (Romans 3:29-30).  

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

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

Malachi invokes the oneness of God, especially, to reprove husbands who have been faithless to “the wife of your youth … your companion and your wife by covenant” (Malachi 2:14). “Did not one God make her?” asks the prophet. I wish my mother’s father had asked himself that question when he left home to strike out on his own as soon as my mother graduated from high school. If he’d just asked himself that one question — “Did not the same God who made me also make Myrtle?”—what loneliness, bitterness, and desperation of straits might he have spared himself and his family?  

To state Malachi’s concerns in positive terms: the God who reveals himself in the Bible loves thriving marriages—not to mention flourishing friendships, smooth working relationships, functional governance, comity among nations and people groups—because he is about oneness. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in eternal communion, the Lord, invites the creatures whom he loves into an eternal dance of love and harmony. May you experience the dance.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

We Need Hearts - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 11/20/2024 •

Proper 28 Year 2

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

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd, and every Monday through Friday, I offer devotional observations on some portion of that day’s readings for Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m very glad to be with you this Wednesday of Proper 28 in Year 2 of the Daily Lectionary.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Made in the Likeness of God - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 11/19/2024 •

Proper 28 Year 2

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; Habakkuk 3:1-18; James 3:1-12; Luke 17:1-10 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd, and every Monday through Friday, I offer devotional observations on some portion of that day’s readings for Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m so very glad to be with you this Tuesday of Proper 28 in Year 2 of the Daily Lectionary.  

Habakkuk. …in wrath may you remember mercy. — Habakkuk 3:2. In this beautiful third chapter, in a prayer that the prophet Habakkuk sings to Yahweh, he gathers up all his emotion at Israel’s desolation. As though writing a psalm, he includes musical instructions at the beginning and at the end. In fact, this chapter begins with the identical superscription, “according to Shigionath,” that appears also at the beginning of Psalm 7. The term “Selah” occurs at the end of verses three, nine, and thirteen of Habakkuk 3; as in the psalms, it probably (though not certainly) means “instrumental interlude.” And although the Daily Office does not include verse 19, this final verse of the entire book of Habakkuk also includes a musical instruction: “To the leader: with stringed instruments.”  

The point? What better time to sing than when you are in your deepest funk! And Habakkuk’s song illustrates the amazing transformation that can come when you do. 

Throughout his song, Habakkuk appeals to Yahweh as the Divine Warrior he had shown himself to be when he rescued Israel from Egypt. Rehearsing that profound and pivotal moment in his people’s history inspires Habakkuk to do three things: 

First, Habakkuk asks Yahweh, “in wrath may you remember mercy.” If we sense God’s burning anger in what we see going on around us, we can know that in the end his ire serves his kind, good, and merciful purposes.  

Second, Habakkuk confesses that he is willing to “wait quietly for the day of calamity to come upon the people who attack us” (Habakkuk 3:16). Because ours is the God who says, “Vengeance is mine,” we can hit “pause” when the temptation arises to strike back at attackers.  

Third, in the meantime, Habakkuk finds the capacity for praise: “…yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:18).  

Your musical heart language may be hymns and anthems. Or it may be contemporary praise and worship songs. Regardless, I hope you’ll take some time to inventory the songs that bring to mind God’s great acts in rescuing you, that give you hope for the future, and that move you to love him more and more. I don’t know what works for you, but lines like these come readily to mind for me: Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father; there is no shadow of turning with thee… and, O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free… 

James. Casual readers of the New Testament have the impression that James is a shallow behaviorist, merely exhorting, “Don’t just talk the talk. Walk the walk!” But some of the Bible’s most penetrating words about the depths of human psychology come from James. In chapter three, he meditates poignantly, even poetically, on the profound inner conflict we all experience over the power of the tongue.  

In the first place, James acknowledges that there is a world of evil within each of us: “a world of iniquity … set on fire by hell” (James 3:6). Know what? It’s best just to admit that. “Hi, I’m Reggie. My heart is a world of iniquity, set on fire by hell.”  

In the second place, the first outlet for that world of iniquity is my speech. I don’t know about you, but over the course of my life, there have been too many hurtful words I wish I could take back.  

In the third place, however, if my speech can be controlled, there’s hope for the rest of me as well! That’s why your mother and mine taught us to “Count to ten!” before speaking when provoked.  That’s why James wrote earlier in his letter, “Quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.” The negative “Such a small spark, such a large fire” (James 3:5) can become a positive: “Such a small compliment, inspiring such great endeavors!” I’m sure that all of us bear scars from hurtful words hurled at us, often years and years ago: “You are so ugly!” “What a klutz!” “Are you really that stupid?” I’m also sure that most of us have found energy, direction, and motivation from words of praise. I know a person who became a famous scholar in their field just because when they were very young, they accidentally heard a grown up tell their parents: “Your kid has no idea how smart they are!” For years now, that person has been living up to those words of praise.  

For James, we don’t have to live with the contradiction of praising God and tearing down people: “With [the tongue] we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God” (James 3:9). That’s why he writes what he writes. Like his Elder Brother, James would have us find the blessedness of an internal integrity and coherence: “purity of heart” and singleness of eye (Matthew 5:8; 6:22-23). We can see others through the lens of God’s good intentions for them. And our lives, beginning with our words, can be springs of fresh and life-giving water. Who might need a word of encouragement and praise from you today? 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Aspects of Faith - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 11/18/2024 •

Proper 28 Year 2

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89; Habakkuk 2:1-4,9-20; James 2:14-26; Luke 16:19-31 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd, and every Monday through Friday, I offer devotional observations on some portion of that day’s readings for Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. Thanks so much for joining me this Monday of Proper 28 in Year 2 of the Daily Lectionary.  

Different aspects of faith come into view in today’s readings. Here’s food for the soul! 

Habakkuk on living by faith. … but the righteous live by their faith. — Habakkuk 2:4. The prophet Habakkuk rises up sometime after the Babylonians have conquered Judah, burned Jerusalem, and razed and plundered the temple. Babylon has been God’s instrument of judgment against God’s sinful people. Nonetheless, in yesterday’s reading, Habakkuk has bitterly complained to God about Babylon’s own arrogance, violence, and idolatry: “Why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they?” (Habakkuk 1:13).   

In today’s reading, Habakkuk proclaims hope. Yahweh has not abandoned his people. He has not set aside his covenant love for them. Through Israel, ultimately “… the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). And though the earthly temple lies in ruins for now, God’s heavenly—and true—temple still stands, inviolate: “But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him” (Habakkuk 2:20). Habakkuk imagines Yahweh turning the tables on Babylon who forced upon Judah the cup of judgment: “The cup in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you, and shame will come upon your glory!” (Habakkuk 2:16).  

When Habakkuk says the “righteous live by their faith,” what he means is that if God’s people will stay true, even in the face of discouragement, dismay, and delay, they will find that life will come to them. As we discover in the New Testament, life has come in Jesus Christ, Messiah and King. It is marvelous to consider the larger backdrop in Habakkuk when Paul appeals to this verse about “the righteous living by faith,” in his letter to the Romans. In fact, Romans 1:16 hoovers up rich depths of Habakkuk’s meaning.  

• In the proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ, Israel’s true Son, indeed, the promise is being fulfilled that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.  

• Precisely where people are “present[ing their] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [their] spiritual worship,” the Lord of heaven and earth is indeed in his holy temple—and all the earth, indeed, should bow in awed silence (Romans 12:1-2).  

• And, altogether in agreement with the Revelation of John’s verdict on Babylon, “the great whore,” who is forced to drink the cup of the wrath of God, Paul asserts that “the God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet” (Romans 16:20). Fittingly, Paul concludes: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”

James on faith and works. Apparent discrepancies—and they are merely apparent discrepancies—between Paul’s approach and James’s should not mask the profound synchronicity between them. Leaving a full treatment of this rich passage for treatment at another time, let me make a dual observation.  

In response to legalists (those who teach that right living establishes a relationship with God), Paul stresses lex credendi lex vivendi, “your believing will determine how you live.” Paul says “faith apart from (God’s taking account of) works” justifies (Romans 3:28; Galatians 2:16). He would absolutely agree with James that works are part of the package of the Christian life: he tells the Galatians that what matters is “faith working through love,” and he tells the Corinthians that what matters is “keeping the commandments of God” (Galatians 5:6; 1 Corinthians 7:19). Moreover, Paul would be able himself to pen James’s: “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:17).  But when Paul has to stand up to people who proudly think they can “climb a stairway to heaven,” he insists: only faith will get you there!   

In response to antinomians (those who maintain that in the Christian life, obedience is “an elective course,” not “a required course”), James stresses lex vivendi lex credendi, “your living will manifest what it is you actually believe.” James says, “a person is justified by works and not by a faith that is alone” (a more accurate translation of James 2:24). James would entirely agree that faith in “our glorious Lord Jesus Christ” is necessary, and that that life is a gift from God himself (James 1:18; 2:1). But when James has to stand up to people who people who slothfully and cynically manipulate statements of theological orthodox (“God is one!” “Jesus is Lord!”) to justify mistreatment of the poor (see James 2:1-7,14-15), he insists: your only justification for calling yourself God’s child is that you show it in your life!  

Paul and James may need to emphasize different aspects, given the pastoral needs of their people, but they both agree: faith and works are inseparable—distinguishable, to be sure, but inseparable nonetheless. 

The rich man and Lazarus. Lessons from James and Habakkuk are so nicely personified in this powerful parable. Plain and simple, for a person who claims to know the God of the Bible to live a life of exorbitant luxury and ease when disease and poverty are camped out in front of their house—well, that is to refute, rebut, and betray that faith. By contrast, for a person holding fast to faith in the God of deliverance, while suffering running sores, scorn, and neglect—well, that is to make the most elegant, eloquent, and compelling statement of faith possible. Let those who have an ear to hear, let them hear.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

The Invariable Goodness of God - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 11/15/2024 •

Proper 27 Year 2

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; Joel 2:28–3:8; James 1:16-27; Luke 16:1-9

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)

Joel provides the chief Old Testament text for Pentecost (see Acts 2:17-21). Today’s Joel passage is also a text vindicating God’s people in their sufferings, and promising retribution against those who have sold them “to the Greeks”: who “have divided my land, and cast lots for my people, and traded boys for prostitutes, and sold girls for wine, and drunk it down” (Joel 3:2,3,6). In some respects, our Savior wins for us forgiveness; in other respects, vindication. It is the ministry of the Holy Spirit, poured out in our hearts, to remind us that Christ is both our Substitute and our Champion. 

James highlights the invariable goodness of God. The “Father of lights” provides every good gift (it’s not a bad idea to begin each day with an inventory of thanksgiving, by the way!), including rebirth by the Word of God into a whole new personal identity. According to James, we are part of the vanguard (“a kind of first fruits”) of a new humanity (James 1:18). Then James offers a meditation on dimensions of that “first fruits” life: 

• the freedom of offering a measured response (“quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger” — James 1:19).

• the “perfect liberty” that is found in reading God’s word the right way—liberty, first, in seeing myself for who I really am (James 1:23-25). This is one of those many places in James where, with “eyes to see and ears to hear,” one discovers a magnificent invitation to cross-reference Paul: “…with unveiled faces, [we see] the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, [and] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Characteristically, James puts this transformation in terms of being a “doer” of the word, and not merely a self-deceiving “hearer.” To which Paul—and the church historical—adds a hearty “Amen!” 

• the right to the claim of being genuinely “religious” (please note, in passing, that the Bible has no patience with the idea that you can somehow be a “Christian” without being “religious”—that’s a meditation for another day). The “religious” life consists of “caring for orphans and widows in their distress, and keeping oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:26-27). Exactly what James’s Elder Brother had said in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the merciful” … and … “Blessed are the pure in heart” (Matthew 5:7-8). 

So much goodness to ponder in James. Don’t read it in a hurry!!!

Luke. And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly… — Luke 16:8. If there were a contest for Most Challenging Parable of Jesus, the hands down winner would be today’s Parable of the Shrewd Steward. I offer a couple of keys to interpreting it. First, unlike other parables that invite us to compare figures in the story with God or Jesus (e.g., in the Parable of the Sower, the Sower is Jesus), this parable doesn’t work that way. This parable is not saying God will let you finagle your way into heaven through shifty financial maneuvers. Expect from this parable a more limited, indirect, and non-allegorical point. 

Second, take in the story itself. 

The business manager of a rich man’s vast agricultural holdings has been fired for “squandering” assets. Told to leave a final accounting on his way out, the crafty manager devises an ingenious plan. He goes to two tenants and allows them to reduce, on the strength of their signatures (not his — he’s been fired!), to reduce their indebtedness by significant amounts. Both these debtors are working large and productive tracts of land—large enough and productive enough that these renters might themselves be in need of a business manager. That could be good for a recently fired manager, especially one who can’t dig and doesn’t want to beg. That’s potentially pretty smart. Not only that, in the shame-culture of the Near East, the rich man is not likely to renounce the generosity the manager has made it look like he (the rich man) has extended to his clients. I like the way commentator John T. Carroll puts it in the New Interpreter’s Bible One Volume Commentary: 

The rich man, his hands tied by the manager’s generosity—he would not dare reinstate the forgiven debts, thus forfeiting honor in the community—can only commend his cunning manager. Ironically, the manager wins his master’s praise by doing what got him fired, squandering the rich man’s property. 

The poignancy of this parable is the statement: “And his master commended the dishonest (adikia) manager because he had acted shrewdly (phronimōs). Within the limited scope of this parable, we are given a case in which a person who to this point had known only how to use money wastefully learns how to use it “shrewdly.” That last word is worth a closer look—“shrewdly” is not the best translation. The Greek word phronimōs is an adverb, and it is normally translated “prudently.” One of the principal virtues in the contemporary world of the New Testament is “prudence,” meaning: rightly relating to reality. 

Rightly relating to reality implies, first, an understanding of reality. For believers, the “children of light,” reality looks a bit different than it does for “the children of this age.” Christians understand that there is a spiritual dimension to life that provides a larger context for events and actions. Jesus reminds his hearers of the long-range destination “eternal homes.”

Utilizing the resources under his control, the dishonest steward acted with an eye to his future. With our own resources, we are encouraged to do the same. The day may well come when we arrive on “the other side,” to discover that an investment in the well-being of someone here on earth pays an unexpected dividend: we are known and welcomed in heaven by the very recipients of our support!

Luke is all about a theology of wealth—of its right use. Just as James is concerned that right “religion” involves the use of wealth to care for widows and orphans, the Jesus of Luke’s gospel puts a premium on the same thing. In fact, it’s not accidental that Luke follows this parable with the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (which will be included in this coming Monday’s readings). Stay tuned. 

Meanwhile, the question for each of us is: as part of a new humanity, how might I use my resources for the bigger picture? How can I contribute to a declaration that Christ lives, he reigns, and it all belongs to him anyway?

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+