Category Archives: Daily Devotion

Holier-than-Thou

Lent

March 26, 2022

Scripture Reading:
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ –Luke 15:1-3

who say, ‘Keep to yourself,
   do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.’
These are a smoke in my nostrils,
   a fire that burns all day long. –Isaiah 65:5

Holier-than-thou describes someone who behaves as if he is morally superior, though in fact, he is not. A holier-than-thou person is considered sanctimonious, self-righteous and not of any higher moral qualities than anyone else*.

The phrase holier-than-thou was derived from the Isaiah scripture quoted above. The verses leading up to verse five list the sins of those who were too holy for others. I fear we live in a world where holier-than-thou behavior is practiced.  Our justice system even acknowledges that status, when white color crimes result in finds and stealing food, results in a jail term. In Oklahoma, if you cannot meet bail you go to jail even though no determination of guilt has been made. Often because of the backup in the justice system, a person can sit in jail for weeks, months before they are tried. In such instances, they often lose jobs and may be evicted for failure to pay rent, and may have not been guilty of a crime at all. As people of faith, we are called to do justice ourselves but also to assure that our governments at all levels do justice.

Prayer: Lord, open our eyes to the injustice that is all around us and help us to do justice and support the rights of all to justice. Amen.

*https://grammarist.com/usage/holier-than-thou/

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

A New Creation

Lent

March 25, 2022

Scripture Reading:

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

How do the norms of our lives intersect or even serve as our faith? A norm is an ideal standard binding upon the members of a group and serving to guide, control, or regulate proper and acceptable behavior*. I am what is called a cradle Christian. I jokingly say I was singing Jesus Love Me in the womb. We prayed before each meal, went to church whenever the doors were opened, serving in various jobs. How much of our faith is a well-practiced habit and how much is our living in Christ as a new creation.

I value growing up in a faith-based family and still sing Jesus Loves Me. Yet, at some point, in my life I had to work out my own relationship with God, requiring me to examine the norms I inherited to determine if they are true of God. Jesus did this in his 40 days of wandering in the wilderness. The process never ends. We must all take time to consider whether our actions are simply a reflection of our life norms or if they are of God. In a world that gets smaller every day, we must reassess how we love all the one another’s we encounter outside the boundaries of our norms.

Prayer: Lord, help me learn to love all the children you created. Amen.

*https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/norm number 3

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Reconciled to and through God

Lent

March 24, 2022

Scripture Reading:

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Reconciliation always requires change whether we are reconciling ourselves to God or one another. We reconcile to God when we commit to coming in line with God’s loving ways of being where God accepts us as we are and as we grow into being all that we can be. Reconciliation with one another involves every day coming into sync with people as we traverse the routines of our lives making the effort to bring our lives into alignment with others. Reconciliation also must occur to correct the fault lines, we may have inherited, but remain a danger to justice for all people. The lack of reconciliation among people is at the heart of most of our problems in this world today and is often the result of being out of sync with God’s justice as we withdraw from being reconciled to God in search of the gods of the world.

The peculiar thing about reconciliation is the issues needing to be reconciled are not the heart of the matter they are merely outcomes. We will never solve those negative outcomes until we address the fundamental problem of failing to love like God at some time in some place recently or historically and change our hearts as well as our behavior.

Prayer: Create in us clean hearts and right spirits as we work for reconciliation. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Spirit Memory

Lent

March 23, 2022

Scripture Reading: Psalm 32

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,
   whose sin is covered.
Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity,
   and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

While I kept silence, my body wasted away
   through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
   my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
   and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’,
   and you forgave the guilt of my sin. –Psalm 39:1-5

This Psalm is specifically attributed to David. He opens with a celebration of being forgiven but follows it with a segment that reeks of guilt describing the time between committing a sin and the attainment of forgiveness. From all reports, David had a deep and abiding life-long relationship with God. He was all too human, also. Fred Craddock wrote a Bible study years ago that was based on the premise that we sin in the areas of our greatest gifts.  (My words, I do not remember his exact description.) David was a crafty strategist. He slew Goliath with shrewdness not might. He played games around poor King Saul while avoiding killing the King. He sent Uriah, to the frontline assuring his death to cover up David’s dalliance that went too far with Bathsheba. And David built one of the most successful nations in history.

How do we decrease using our skills and talents in negative ways and hone them to perfection in service to God?  Our natural, go-to reactions are almost completed before we even consider a response. I wonder how quickly David realized what he had done after ordering his general to send Uriah to the frontline. Spiritual memory is like the muscle memory of a good athlete. The field of play is not the time to contemplate the next steps. Athletes spend hours every day building that muscle memory so that when they act the action is spontaneous in the right way to achieve their goal whether it is hitting or blocking a shot, for example. All people of faith must work diligently to attain spiritual memory so that our reactions are based on service to God. That, indeed, requires individual work with good teachers/pastors, but it also means honing our skills to work effortlessly with a team. Think how firefighters respond to a blaze where everyone seems to know the next important response and does it reflexively. How much time and training must be completed to do the impossible so effortlessly.  People of faith must build their teams, too.

Prayer: Lord, keep us focused on your desired outcomes and mold and make us into individuals and teams ready to respond in spiritual memory. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Cling to God

Lent

March 22, 2022

Scripture Reading:

Joshua 5:9-12

The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.’ And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.

While the Israelites were encamped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

The disgrace of Egypt may have been the failure of the escaping Israelites to continue the practice of circumcision when they wandered in the wilderness. I am unsure why. Were they angry at God for both being enslaved and being thrust into what they considered a God-forsaken place to wander with only what they had been able to carry out of Egypt? Maybe they thought if God had left them, they would leave God. Joshua reminded his people that God is still with them, that they needed to return to his loving care that was there all along.

My morning news today carried a brief video of a worship service being held in Ukraine amid the bombings. It gave me hope for them but also for the rest of us dealing with a world gone mad and in desperate need of a Savior we already have.

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free.

 Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
  In the light of His glory and grace.

Prayer: Lord, hold us closer than ever in your loving arms and help us to see a peaceful way to end the battles of war and governance. Amen.

First verse and chorus of Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus by Helen Howarth Lemmel. See at https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/645

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Self-Sufficiency

Lent

March 21, 2022

Scripture Reading: Joshua 5:9-12

The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.’ And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.

While the Israelites were encamped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

I worked in the public welfare arena for 35 years and took a lot of negative blowbacks from friends and relatives, even some strangers, who classified the poor as lazy, no-good, people. I had an aunt who attacked me at every family reunion about all the welfare queens she knew. My observation over those years was that people receiving public assistance were essentially no different than the general population. It may come as a surprise but there are lazy, no-good people at every income level. I have been a waitress and a nurse’s aide (now called a nursing assistant, I think) and can assure you that neither job is for the weak or the lazy. The minimum wage in Oklahoma for waitpersons is $2.12 an hour they are expected to make up the difference between that and the minimum wage of $7.50 an hour with tips. According to the MIT living wage calculator, a living wage for a single person in Oklahoma is $13.53 an hour. What we strive for in the human services realm is helping people become self-sufficient.

Sufficient means to meet one’s obligations or satisfy one’s needs: competency also: a modest but not parsimonious scale or way of living: adequate comfort*.

I thought of this as I read the scripture above regarding the Israelite need for manna after their escape from Egypt. Eventually, they learned to be self-sufficient in planting and growing crops.  I hated the change in the law in the mid-1990s when the federal government changed the work requirement for receiving public assistance to taking the first job offered. Most of those jobs were minimum wages. With an 18-month vocational education course, an individual could move from being a nursing assistant to becoming a practical nurse that would pay enough to make them self-sufficient. Nursing assistants to survive would need food stamps, Medicaid, and if they had children childcare supplements, and they would still face the judgmental biases of their neighbors who are called to love them.

Prayer: Lord, you provided manna when it was needed and people to guide your children into self-sufficiency. Help us never forget our role in helping others to reach that standard. Amen.

*https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/sufficiency

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Growing in Faith

Lent

March 20, 2022

Scripture Reading: Luke 13:1-9

Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”’ –Luke 13:6-9

I do not think I have ever seen a fig tree in Oklahoma. I checked and learned that they will grow here if the variety planted is hardy enough for cold weather and watered adequately when the weather is hot. I do know that fruit trees vary in the length of time from planting to bearing fruit. Fruiting fig trees have a long juvenile period compared to other fruit trees. Most figs will not produce a crop for the first four to five years*.

I guess that is why this scripture has always puzzled me. The gardener most likely understood that the tree was developing normally as the gardener advised they give the tree another year. I was interested when I read the information about fig trees quoted above that the word juvenile was used. Jesus may be describing ways to help teenagers move through the transition from childhood to adulthood physically, mentally, and spiritually. It could as well apply to all transitions in our faith. James W. Fowler’s book, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning describes the transitions of faith from birth to death.  Getting stuck and staying in one of the stages is when problems arise. I must admit, I have recently wondered if many people in our society are stagnating in the terrible two’s stage of psychological development.

I also noted that the owner changed his tone after hearing the gardener’s recommendation. The owner did not say if the tree failed to produced in a year to cut it down, he gave the gardener permission to cut it down leaving the impression that it was the gardener’s decision.

This scripture draws me to read Fowler’s books again and assess where I am in my faith development. It also challenges us when we are serving in the role of helping others grow in their faith we let God guide us and practice patience.

Prayer: Lord, guide me in my faith development and when I am called to guide others. Amen.

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/fig-tree-bear-fruit-49324.html

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

God is Faithful

Lent

March 18, 2022

Scripture Reading:

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not become idolaters as some of them did; as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.’ We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it. –1 Corinthains 10:6-13

Bad behavior can result in bad outcomes, but not necessarily. Good behavior can also result in bad outcomes. For example, the person who jumps in a lake to save a child from drowning drowns. I believe Jesus when he says it rains on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45). That does not authorize us to do bad things. More times than not our bad behavior catches up with us whether it is overeating or mistreating others or robbing convenience stores. Our ancestors in faith lived in a time when direct connections were made from a bad outcome to something someone had done. When I worked in a nursing home one of the patients told me the story about the long red birthmark on her thigh. Her mother told her the birthmark was punishment for her mother’s climbing over a fence to take fruit from a neighbor’s tree. She slipped and the barbed wire cause an identical scar on her mother’s thigh. I did not know what to make of that when I was 19. I doubt she ever stole fruit from a neighbor’s tree. Paul’s comment No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone is important for us to heed. We come from a different perspective when we are tested because God is faithful and is always with us.

Prayer: Thanks be to God. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Repentance

Lent

March 19, 2022

Scripture Reading: Luke 13:1-9

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’–Luke 13:1-5

Years ago, a woman I worked with was treated very badly by the male executives in the agency. She was clearly the best person for a job that she did not get. It was awarded to a young man with little or no experience and who had less education. He became her supervisor. She, of course, ended up doing the work for which he was paid. I stopped by her office and told her how sorry I was, and she said, “that’s OK, the executives will get theirs in the end.” Something similar to Karma is easy to find in most cultures.

Jesus is telling us that God’s justice is not an accidental coincidence. God has commanded us to love one another with no exceptions. Jesus modeled that love in his life, death, and resurrection. We are judged by that scale. We all fall short of perfection in our love and thus, we need to come before God and confess our shortcomings and seek God’s better way. Psalm 51:1-2 might be a good scripture to apply to our lives. It is ascribed to David as his repentance over his relationship with Bathsheba. Here are the first two verses.

Prayer:
Have mercy on me, O God,
   according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
   blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
   and cleanse me from my sin. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Seeing through Christ’s Eyes

Lent

March 17, 2022

Scripture Reading:

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness. –1 Corinthians 10:1-5

People who identify as Christians all read the same Bible and, too often, see what we want to see. There is a campaign ad running in Oklahoma against Governor Stitt regarding the crimes of one of the 400+ people who were granted early release under a program to reduce the sentences of people already in prison. This is not an endorsement of any candidate for office. It is an example of how totally different people understand the same stories. The man killed a woman cut out her heart, cooked it, and when some of the man’s family members refused to eat it, he killed them. The ad is saying the current Governor is not tough enough on crime. I saw it as the story of our total lack of appropriate mental health services in the state of Oklahoma. The man was not recommended for release, and, indeed there may be some people who need to be confined for the protection of others, but society has a responsibility to offer them every opportunity to find wholeness and to be the best person they can be. He could have committed the same crime in prison, killing other prisoners or prison staff. We just executed another mentally ill man who killed a member of the prison staff. That crime, too, was preventable had he received appropriate care.

Our scripture today talks about the fact that the Israelites had access to the God of love who fed them all the same spiritual food and drink, but some did not like its taste.

In times like these you need an anchor;
Be very sure, be very sure,
Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!*

Prayer: Lord, help us clearly see the needs of all your children and work to help them attain wholeness. Amen.

First verse of hymn In Times Like These by Ruth Caye Jones See at https://namethathymn.com/christian-hymns/in-times-like-these-lyrics.html

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.