Category Archives: Daily Devotion

Intentional Living

Ordinary Time

February 13, 2022

Scripture Reading: Luke 6:27-38

‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.’ –Luke 6:37-38

The container in which I store ground coffee holds exactly 12 ounces. It must be totally empty to hold the coffee from the pouch I pour into it. To make the transfer I must shake the receiving container at least once to press it down so the lid will close. I usually use that which might run over to make my next cup of coffee before I close the lid. I buy my coffee and other products from Equal Exchange*. My favorite is their Organic Mind, Body, and Soul Coffee. I thought of them when I read the last part of the above scripture. We do not realize the many ways we can help others just through the everyday activities of living. My buying Equal Exchange coffee provides me with a quality product I would buy anyway while enabling small farmers in third world nations to eke out a living, often when they otherwise could not compete with the corporate farms making much of the coffee we drink while their workers earn far below a living wage.

God calls us to be intentional about the way we invest our time, energy, and resources for the wellbeing of all people. Before COVID hit we sold at cost, Equal Exchange coffee, tea, chocolate, and olive oil at my church in support of this program. My hope is we will sell it again when we are able to return to full attendance at worship. In the meantime, we each can buy it online from home. It is a small thing, but we indeed do get a wonderful return for our efforts.

Praise God for the harvest of orchard and field,
praise God for the people who gather their yield,
the long hours of labor, the skills of a team,
the patience of science, the power of machine.

Praise God for the harvest that comes from afar,
from market and harbor, the sea and the shore:
foods packed and transported, and gathered and grown
by God-given neighbors, unseen and unknown**.

Prayer: Thank you Lord for farmers, near and far, who bless us with food for our bodies. Amen.

*To learn more about Equal Exchange go to https://equalexchange.coop/

**Verses one and two of PRAISE GOD FOR THE HARVEST OF ORCHARD AND FIELD by Brian Wren see at https://www.hopepublishing.com/find-hymns-hw/hw2711.aspx

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.

Expect Nothing

Ordinary Time

February 12, 2022

Scripture Reading: Luke 6:27-38

‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

‘If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. –Luke 6:27-36

I do not recall when I started practicing the art of expecting nothing in return. It must have been somewhere in my childhood. The most positive thing about expecting nothing is when a positive response returns to you—an uncontrolled smile or a  reflexive hug—it becomes an unexpected blessing.

There is no way any of us can know everything that has happened in another’s history or even if they have a toothache that makes them behave the way they do. Others have the same problem when they consider why I do what I do or say what I say. I think God created very different people because a diversity of skills and talents are needed to maintain the world. Sometimes we need others to translate those differences to help create cohesion in the work we do. I grew up on a farm went to a very small rural school. Although I have lived in a city two-thirds of my life, I still understand the differing needs of people living in the country and those living in the city. I can become a translator between the two entities.

Jesus uses the language of the day like “enemies” to describe other people, but he is also saying that there are no enemies when love rules; there may be some people who do not understand that yet. We are called to translate that through our love.

Prayer: Help us to love others expecting nothing in return. 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.

 

God’s Lessons

Ordinary Time

February 11, 2022

Scripture Reading:
1 Corinthians 15:12-20

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

I guess I cringe at scriptures like this because they have been misrepresented to make oppression holy. The great history of faith in Jesus Christ springing out of American slavery was formed in a time when slaves were taught to mind their masters well and their reward would come in heaven. Such theology runs through other caste systems including misogyny*. The miracle of God’s grace is that people came come out of oppression with an even deeper faith even though their oppressors tried to mislead them. God’s love transcends human distortions. Those of us who inherited our faith can too easily take it for granted and never take the time to delve into the depths of God’s love.

Paul was writing to the Christ-followers in his letter to the Corinthians who were apparently struggling with the idea that a dead person could come back to life.  This scripture nowhere says if one gives in to the powers-that-be they will inherit eternal life. He says not believing in Jesus’s resurrection separates one from God. The argument about the resurrection is a whole other theological discussion that has nothing to do with sanctifying oppression.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us when we twist words to salve our own sins. Thank you for your amazing grace that prospers your love in spite of human attempts to redefine it.  Amen.

*For more information on this, you might want to read Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, Robin Miles, et al.

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.

Death Has No Sting

Ordinary Time

February 10, 2022

Scripture Reading:
1 Corinthians 15:12-20

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.

I believe in a Supreme Being that is love and the source of all that is, I call God. I believe in the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, who embodied the Supreme Being when he came to earth as a newborn, lived the life of a human, shared the love of God with all, was crucified on a cross, died and rose again. He breathed the Spirit of God on all his disciples as he has continued to do from that time forth. With the Spirits guidance Jesus commissioned us to take the love of God throughout our world and use it as the springboard for the wellbeing of the world God created and all that is within it.

That said, I have no clue what happens after our death. Of this I am sure, I will spend eternity with God and that is all I need to know. Thus, scriptures like the one above perplex me, and, yet, I know others for whom such scriptures speak much comfort. I do not love God in real time only for the promise of something better to come. I hope I share God’s love for the sake of its value for myself and others rather than building my faith resume’.  I do believe that to whom much is given much will be required (Luke 12:48). God wants all of us to be fully what God created us to be and God never measures our outcomes against others.

Prayer: Lord, we are in chaos as we stumble through the world’s temptations and try to make sense out of what is of you and what is not. We thank you for your abiding presence and asked that you restore and help us retain our recognition of it and not be mislead by false prophets. 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.

Restoring our Souls, Restoring our World

Ordinary Time

February 9, 2022

Scripture Reading: Psalm 1
Happy are those
   who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
   or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
   and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees
   planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
   and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.

The wicked are not so,
   but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
   nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
   but the way of the wicked will perish.

The wicked are hard to discern in our world today. They very craftily reshape reality to meet their ideology, through partial truths or outright lies. If they repeat it enough, people start to believe it. We definitely have a good supply of scoffers, at times leading to violence. The Psalmist above assures us that the wicked will perish in the judgment. My question is what do we do in the meantime?

While it feels like we are in dangerous times, and, indeed, I think we could travel down wrong paths long enough, as the nation of Israel did, that we might find ourselves in exile. I have a greater sense that we have entered a time in history when a major move toward the good is opening if we seek and take advantage of the opportunities that lie within it. God sent Jesus to challenge us to work together in oneness to actualize, make real throughout the world, God’s vision of all operating on the power of love and doing great and wonderful things, together. We all think we are not the wicked when to some degree as we foster divisiveness and self-righteousness, we all become wicked. Clearing out the cobwebs of our souls is a great place to start, fostered by a closer relationship with God.

Prayer: Drop thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease;
take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of thy peace.

 Breathe through the heats of our desire
thy coolness and thy balm;
let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm*! Amen.

*Fourth and fifth verses of Dear Lord and Father of Mankind by John Greenleaf Whittier  see at https://hymnary.org/text/dear_lord_and_father_of_mankind

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.

Who Do You Trust?

Ordinary Time

February 8, 2022

Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 17:5-10

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,
   whose trust is the Lord.
They shall be like a tree planted by water,
   sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes,
   and its leaves shall stay green;
in the year of drought it is not anxious,
   and it does not cease to bear fruit. –Jeremiah 17:7-8

In the 1950s there was a game show on TV. Who do you trust? It required a couple to decide which one would answer the next question, the man or the woman, based on the question’s subject. Indeed, we each must make the decision whether we trust in the Lord, but we also gain trust in the Lord by sharing our personal experiences with others.

I love my Sunday School class for that reason, it includes business owners, schoolteachers, government workers, lawyers, engineers, nurses, each with a slightly different take on life. As I wrote this, I was reminded that that group of people are mostly well-educated middle class or above people. Reminding me I also value highly my experience in high school and college working as a waitress and nurses’ aide. Working with women in minimum wage jobs who were the sole support of their families was eye-opening. Some were young mother’s others were older women who were working outside the home for the first time in their lives because their spouse had died or become disabled. It certainly is not the same as living in their shoes but at least I knew they existed. When I worked in those jobs the minimum wage was about the same as the poverty level. Today the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and $2.13 an hour for persons receiving tips. The poverty wage for 1 person in Oklahoma is $6.13 and a living wage is $13.53. In all families with more than one person, the minimum wage is below the federal poverty level*.

During Jesus’s ministry, he went out of his way to open his disciples’ eyes to the needs of all people. Rich or poor and called us to love them all. I am sure you can trust that remains his goal for all his disciples today in a world where trust is in short supply.

Prayer: Lord, renew and restore our trust in following your example as we work to renew and restore the love we need for one another and all others.  Amen.

*https://livingwage.mit.edu/states/40

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.

Heart or Mind or Both

Ordinary Time

Heart vs Mind

February 7, 2022

Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 17:5-10

Thus says the Lord:
Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals
   and make mere flesh their strength,
   whose hearts turn away from the Lord.
They shall be like a shrub in the desert,
   and shall not see when relief comes.
They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness,
   in an uninhabited salt land.

The heart is devious above all else;
   it is perverse—
   who can understand it?
I the Lord test the mind
   and search the heart,
to give to all according to their ways,
   according to the fruit of their doings. –Jeremiah 17:5-6, 9-10

We need to remember that the authors of the Bible did not share the same knowledge base about human bodies that we understand today. For us, the heart is a pump that sends blood flowing through the body. in ancient times it was the word that represented the inner man, mind, will, with specific reference to moral character* We do continue some of that meaning when we celebrate Valentine’s Day with “heart” shaped cards that are not shaped like the heart at all. The Hebrew word translated mind here is the word for kidney. I have no idea how to consider that.

The question being considered is: are we ruled by our feelings or by facts? And the answer is both. Jeremiah quotes the Lord as saying that the Lord tests the mind and searches the heart and that is wise advice for us particularly in our world today. I find myself checking sources I trust when I read a statement of fact that does not seem reliable. At the least, I have found the information to be misleading or taken out of context. And sometimes it is just not true. Other language is loaded with wording designed to steer us away from facts and see from an emotional level. In these instances, we must indeed search our hearts to see if we can determine what triggered our emotional response and whether that response is valid for the situation at this time in this place. We carry a lot of baggage from past experiences that might make us wiser but also that could trigger a response that does not fit the current situation.

I also try to put decisions and actions to the test of love. Is my response to this statement, this issue, this event based on loving God and loving my neighbor as myself?

Prayer: Lord, enable me to clothe myself in the habit of seeking first your guidance and example when making decisions. Amen.

*https://biblehub.com/hebrew/3820.htm

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.

Innovations

Ordinary Time

February 6, 2022

Scripture Reading: Luke 5:1-11

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’ Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

“If You Always Do What You’ve Always Done, You’ll Always Get What You’ve Always Got.” ~ Henry Ford.

I thought of this quote when I heard on the news recently that the Ford Motor Company was making a major shift to electric vehicles. Henry would probably be proud that the company he founded remained innovative.

Jesus came to show us a better way that requires us to review our ways of following God to address the wellbeing of the entire world through love. God’s rules of living, many of us learned in childhood, are valid and still provide good guidance for all but they are not the final purpose. Following those rules possibly fostered the attitude of self-righteousness as epitomized by the Pharisees in Jesus’s time who worked hard at being better than others and even each other. They spun commonsense laws into rituals with other rules of their own making from how to wash feet to how to get out of caring for your parents if you donate to the Temple*. That made sense to the faith leaders because they were the ones who benefited from those donations. We have some folks like that today.

Jesus called us back to God’s first law, you shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:3) To adhere to that law, we must invest a lifetime of learning about God and learning how to love like God. God even sent Jesus to model that behavior. It also means we must learn to identify and avoid the temptations of all those other gods that work hard to distract us from the ways of God.

Of course, loving God and working toward God’s goals did not end with the resurrection, we continue to receive guidance from the Holy Spirit and we carry on with finding new and better ways to build a world ruled by God’s love. The miracle in the story above wasn’t the huge catch of fish, it was the Simons and James that caught the fire of Jesus’s message and went on to change the world.  We stand in their boat today.

Prayer: Lord, the world is very discouraging today as we deal with a pandemic, climate control issues, and world discontent. Show us the innovations we need to make and give us the courage to initiate them. Amen.

*See Mark7:10-12

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.

Whatever It Takes

Ordinary Time

February 5, 2022

Scripture Reading: Luke 5:1-11

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’ Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

How closely linked are our efforts, our good intentions to Christ’s plan? I am sure that Simon and the others with him were fishing according to accepted customs. While this event may be listed with miracles of Jesus or just a metaphor for entering the mission field, it also relates to the need to be in sync with God in all aspects of our lives. It may also suggest that the way we have always done something is not the only or best way to complete the task. I once worked with a computer programmer who hated to do the mundane tasks of transferring massive amounts of routine data to our data warehouse. It apparently was not hard to do, it was tedious and boring, but it had to be done on a routine basis for the people accessing the data warehouse to use the most current data. He preferred to create new programs that enhanced data use. They were generally all good ideas, but worthless if there was no data to access in the system.

We must continually assess and modify our work toward being the Body of Christ in the world today and building the Kingdom of God to make sure our work is hitting the mark toward our purpose. That may include doing the tedious, boring stuff as well as the aspects of our work that provide immediately recognizable rewards. Although a few of those outcomes along the way, help.

Prayer: Lord, give us a song in our hearts when we find ourselves doing the tedious, boring stuff in working toward the Kingdom of God and the joy of seeing, on occasion, positive outcomes of our work.  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.

Grace is Amazing

Ordinary Time

February 4, 2022

Scripture Reading:
1 Corinthians 15:1-11

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe. —1  Corinthians 15 3-11

The story of John Newton, author of the hymn Amazing Grace came to mind as I read Paul’s acknowledgment by the grace of God, I am what I am. After his conversion, Paul had to live with his history of persecuting Christians. When he wrote this as the person he had become, he was the primary leader responsible for taking Christ’s love and message to the gentiles and welcoming them as Christ’s followers. John Newton worked for years on slave ships and made his wealth in the slave trade until he too had a conversion experience that introduced him to God’s grace.

As followers of Christ, we are called to introduce others to the grace of God. We may first need to revisit our own experiences with God’s grace. We most likely never persecuted Christians or sold slaves. I fear our sins fall in the area of ignoring justice undone and allowing atrocities to happen. I watched with interest everyone’s consternation that all our foreign-made Christmas gifts were setting on delivery ships in the ocean and would not arrive in time for Christmas. We allowed that to happen and wound up in this mess because for years we have prospered through the near slave labor of the people manufacturing the things we want in those foreign countries. At the same time, our manufacturing jobs slipped away forcing more and more people into service jobs that do not pay living wages.  Justice cries out for all people to earn at least a living wage.

I am sure Paul and John Newton did much soul-searching throughout their lives. We, too, need to be humbled by the gift of grace God grants us as we sometimes stumble through becoming the person God created us to be. When needed we must be willing to offer grace to others.

Prayer: Lord, help me to see when acts of grace are needed on my part and to follow your lead and offer them. 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.