Luke 2:1-20 : Well...

  In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while[a] Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.

4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

21 On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived.

I love that they shepherds are completely practical about the coming of the Savior.  These are presumably men, not highly educated but not stupid, And by necessity efficient, practical and sensible. All the people I know who work in ag have these characteristics in common. And if they were not born with them, they have had to learn them: practical, efficient and sensible.

So the angels appear and the shepherds have got to be thinking, "This is a sign that tonight is going to go off the rails, its going to scare the sheep and yipes." 

Now, I presume the angels spoke to them in more common and comprehensible language than is represented by the Gospel writer. But they made their message clear: it is not just this night that is being overturned, it is every day and night from now on.  And you guys have to go see the baby.

The Scripture says they turned to one another and said, "Well, then, let's go to Bethlehem."  I think there was more than that. I mean, they had to figure out who would stay with the sheep - they were not going to drive the sheep the Bethlehem- and who would go tell their families that they would not be home... there were logistics. 

But from the moment they heard the news, their practical shoulders shrugged and they set out to do what had been assigned to them.  There is no record of any one of them saying, "That sounds like BS to me." or "Why is that our business?" Even if they did, the Gospel writer would not have mentioned it. 

Nope, according to our text, they believed. And they acted on it. They believed and they acted. 

We live in  a time when skepticism and questioning of authority is a standard in our society.  We question everything and the more snarky and less respectfully we do it, the better for all concerned.  So it doesn't come naturally to us to shrug and say, "Well, God has broken into our lives lets change course." 

But what if we did.  What if, for one day, we lived  as though we believed what we say we believe. What if we looked for God's direction in our lives and then shrugged and followed?

Set an Intention: Be still and listen for God today.

Luke 1:57-80: You, my child, will be...

 57 When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. 58 Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.

59 On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, 60 but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.”

61 They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.”

62 Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. 63 He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.” 64 Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God. 65 All the neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. 66 Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, “What then is this child going to be?” For the Lord’s hand was with him.

Zechariah’s Song

67 His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:

68 “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
    because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
69 He has raised up a horn[c] of salvation for us
    in the house of his servant David
70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
71 salvation from our enemies
    and from the hand of all who hate us—
72 to show mercy to our ancestors
    and to remember his holy covenant,
73     the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
    and to enable us to serve him without fear
75     in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

76 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
    for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation
    through the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
    by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
79 to shine on those living in darkness
    and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

80 And the child grew and became strong in spirit[d]; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.

"And he grew and became strong in spirit and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel."

What must that have been like for Elizabeth and Zechariah? Their long awaited and miraculous son, of whom so much was expected, became and unwashed weird-o, living in the wilderness, eating bugs and wearing sack cloth. In the deepest parts of their hearts, in the dark silence of their bedroom, they whispered their disappointment and heartbreak.

Al children disappoint their parents.  Even Barach Obama probably disappointed his mom: "Why couldn't you get Universal Healthcare done?  We have to give our children space to be who they have imagined for themselves, and to journey to that person through the wilderness of their own choices. It is hard, I wish my kids were all bankers and doctors and lived in the same town, state or even time zone at me. But they have worked hard to become who they are, they earned their lives, just as I did mine. I miss them but I raised them to be themselves and I should be and am grateful for the wonderful humans they have become. 

We live in a time (it may be no different from other times, maybe we always think this is the worst), when oxycontin and heroin and alcohol and crack cocaine turn the barely baked brains of our beloved and miraculous children into mush.  The potential that we saw in them ebbs away. They live in the wilderness and eat bugs and wear sack cloth. 

Not many of these babies are prophets of the most high.  But we have to believe that God can still work through them. Even if it is just to fill us with enough rage to seek a solution to addiction disease. We have to believe that God has not abandoned them, even if, for reasons of our own safety, we have to build boundaries around them.

Parents judge their children.  That is the fact.  But at some point we have to see them not as our children but as grown adults, independent people, God's hands and feet, set aside how we failed them and look at how God worked in them. And be proud.

Luke 1:25-56

 26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[b] the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”

38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Mary Visits Elizabeth

39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

Mary’s Song

46 And Mary said:

“My soul glorifies the Lord
47     and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has been mindful
    of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49     for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
    holy is his name.
50 His mercy extends to those who fear him,
    from generation to generation.
51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
    he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones
    but has lifted up the humble.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
    but has sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
    remembering to be merciful
55 to Abraham and his descendants forever,
    just as he promised our ancestors.”

56 Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

One of the trickiest theological concepts for me is "now but not yet."  This is the idea that the promises made in the gospel "are fulfilled in your presence" but "creation is groaning with labor pains."  It is clear that Jesus, his followers and Paul all believed that the eschaton was coming soon" "this generation will not pass away..."  But it didn't .  It hasn't.  And the next obvious question is, "will it ever?"

My next thought is, does it matter?  

God promises us that the world will someday reflect the values and mores of the kingdom. There will be a day when bigotry is no more, when wealth and poverty are abolished, when imagination and creativity and kindness are the things to which our cultures aspire.  And they do so unified on one safe planet, resting in peace ever evening and rising in hope every morning.  in short, Star Trek. 

But what f that is all it ever amounts to?  What if "the kingdom" is science fiction?  What if Go never wields God's mighty arm?

How would that change our posture today?  Would we stop being kind to one another because the kingdom was not coming?  Would we choose to be cruel because there is no reward?  Would we hoard our resources and starve our neighbor?  Would we destroy our fragile island home because what-the-hell? Are we just doing these things for transactional reasons - "I do this and I get the kingdom" ?  Are we compassionate to our fellow child of God, but really we are holding our nose until Jesus comes back? 

Would we stop following Jesus because the road is endless?

I don't think so. I think that there is something inside of every human being at their birth that yearns to be good, yearns to love, seeks just relationships and desires to live in safety, compassion and peace all the days of their life.  Now, the world may intervene. Violence begets violence, avarice and greed beget crime, children are traumatized and monsters are created. But even then, in our simplest, most centered selves, the world we desire is the one we describe as the Kingdom.  And we know well that to the degree that we have power, we can use it to realize or destroy that dream. 

Every day. 

Regardless of whether today is number 739,295 of the endless count into eternity, or day 628,184 in the countdown to the perousia. Either way, the lessons Jesus taught us, the example he set, the guidelines he gave, the guardrails in the Hebrew Bible, all of them still resonate within us.  We KNOW that is the right way to behave.

Whether God brings the End Times today or never, the way of this world is in our hands. 

Act like it.

Set Your Intention:

Today I will act like I believe what the Bible tells me.

Psalm 62: Pour out our hearts

 PSALM 62   

1For God alone my soul in silence waits; * from God comes my salvation.   

2God alone is my rock and my salvation, *my stronghold, so that I shall not be greatly shaken.   

3How long will you assail me to crush me, all of you together, * as if you were a leaning fence, a toppling wall?   

4They seek only to bring me down from my place of honor; * lies are their chief delight.   

5They bless with their lips, * but in their hearts they curse.   

6For God alone my soul in silence waits; * truly, there is my hope.   

7God alone is my rock and my salvation, * my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken.   

8In God is my safety and my honor; * God is my strong rock and my refuge.   

9Put your trust in God always, O people; * pour out your hearts before the One who is our refuge.

10Those of high degree are but a fleeting breath; * even those of low estate cannot be trusted. 

11On the scales they are lighter than a breath, * all of them together. 

12Put no trust in extortion; in robbery take no empty pride; * though wealth increase, set not your heart upon it. 

13God has spoken once, twice have I heard it, * that power belongs to God. 

14Steadfast love is yours, O God, * for you repay everyone according to their deeds. 

I read the psalms in a 30 day cycle as it is laid out in my St Helena psalter. It is part of the daily readings with which I start every day.  Often these readings wash over me and I can't remember what they even said, let alone what meaning they imparted to me.  Sometimes all of them land like trench mortars in my gut and blow open my chest.  Today, this psalm, the first of three assigned to this morning, washed the others into oblivion (which is ok, they will come around next month and the whole thing will feel brand new). 

We currently (Feb 2025) have a madman in the Whitehouse.  He is, as my sage friend Chantal pointed out, a narcissist, playing off our fear and our emotions.  We ping-pong back and forth, reacting and running in terror, hair on fire.  Which is exactly what he wants: for us to be unstable and easily made to stumble - skandalon. This does not need to be our way. We can sit still and silent and listen to, reach for, rest in God alone.

For God alone my soul in silence waits; * from God comes my salvation

2God alone is my rock and my salvation, *my stronghold, so that I shall not be greatly shaken.

3How long will you assail me to crush me, all of you together, * as if you were a leaning fence, a toppling wall?  

Here is an image for the world.  A leaning fence or toppling wall.  This completely describes the sense of having now power, no STRENGTH to hold back the forces of the Universe.  My former mother-in-law, may her memory be a blessing, lived like this, feeling as if the emotions that the world thrust on her would crush her entirely. She depended on other people to hold that wall at bay. They disappointed her, I among them.

Read this psalm through a hundred times. Memorize it.  Tattoo it on your arm (I may well do this), and hold on to it until 2029. 

God alone is my rock and my salvation, * my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken.  

Set your intention:

Who or what is crushing you?  Who or what are you crushing?  Can you shift that weight enough to lean entirely on God?

Luke 1:5-25

 5 In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. 6 Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. 7 But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.

8 Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, 9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

11 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. 13 But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. 16 He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

18 Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

19 The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. 20 And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”

21 Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. 22 When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.

23 When his time of service was completed, he returned home. 24 After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. 25 “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”

Zechariah was chosen by lot to go into the temple and burn incense. We lean later that the Lord used this time when he was alone and in prayer to send Gabrielle to tell him about how God would be working n his life. Now, drawing lots implies that there was a chance that another priest in his cohort could have been the one to go in and light the incense. If that had been the case, would that priest's child have become the foreteller of Christ?  Or would God have snuck up on Zechariah in another place and time? Did God put God's thumb on the scale when the lots were drawn? If yes, then can "just by chance" ever be trusted? And if not, then could anyone be part of the holy story and JtB just "lucked out"?

I want to believe both.  Many of my "old time religion" friends use expressions like "God-incidence" instead of coincidence, they refer to "God winks" and say "there is no such thing as 'by accident." Well, maybe not, maybe God steps in and changes fate for us.  But why some and not others?  If it was a "God"-incidence" that I met my husband-to-be again after thirty years apart, then why has my friend Susie never ever met her partner after a lifetime of searching? If it was not an accident that a tree fell on a tent and killed a camper, but left the other tents alone, was it the act of God?  

Nope, I can't believe it.  I am more comfortable with the idea that whoever had walked into the temple on that day, Zechariah or Herman or Shmuley, they would have been approached by the angel Gabrielle, they would have been given unlikely news, they would have mouthed off and gotten put in talking-timeout. And the story we tell today might not be about an aged couple having an oops-baby, but maybe a young couple who were not ready or a poor couple who could not afford or a single Dad. God places God's hand on all of our hearts. All of us.  And we chose whether or not to let that be the guiding circumstance for us.  

There is always speculation about whether Mary was he first or the fortieth person invited to be the God-bearer and the others said, "No."  This is the same speculation.  Could Zechariah have declined?  Did others?  Could JtB had said, "The old man had a bad dream" and lead a dissolute life? 

We look around at other people, clergy, elected leadership, heroes of every kind, and say, "that person has something special" and maybe "God gave them what they needed for such a time as this."  But what if God made us all heroes and we just have to agree to it.  What if we all have had God's hand on us, we just have to embrace the narrative and live into the truth of our lives. 

Imagine the Lord saying about you that you will be a joy and delight and many will rejoice because of your birth.  Imagine that that there is a family story about how you will bring people back to God and make way for Jesus in your life. 

Now go out and act like that is true. Because it is.

Introducing The Daily Dean

Well, hi there.

This blog, like so many projects in the world, emerges out of frustration. I am a reader of daily meditations.  I have one for recovering addicts, one for empathic people, and one for people who are trying to learn to love their spouse's cats (not really, but if you know of one like that, please message me). 

I don't have a good one for reading scripture daily.  Not because there aren't a lot of them, there are, but because they don't have the Scripture included. So instead of one book, the meditations, now I need two books, the meditation and the Bible. And since I do all my reading on a kindle or kindle-like product, and there is no really good, searchable and easily accessible Bible on kindle, I end up very very frustrated by the whole damn thing. 

So, if I figured if I can't find what I want in a daily scripture reading, then I might as well make one.  

In this blog, you will find daily scripture reading INCLUDING THE SCRIPTURE, a brief commentary from me, and a thought or question for the day. 

Sadly, none of this is available on Kindle. 

We begin with Luke 1:1 and go through the New Testament.  Luke, because it is Year 3 in the Revised Common Lectionary, and, frankly, Luke/Acts is what I think I need right now (the beginning of the second Trump administration). 

If you're interested in taking my observations further, I am very glad to engage in civil conversation, you can leave me a comment or send me an email.  We have Bible study on Thursdays at 12:30 at the Cathedral (9th and Walnut in Salina KS) and services on Saturdays at 6PM and Sundays at 10AM. Stop by for more of the same. 

May God give you the grace never to sell yourself short

the grace to risk something big for something good

The grace to remember that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth

and too small for anything but love

and the blessing of God almighty be upon you and those you love.

Dean Shay

Luke 1:1-4

 

Introduction

1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

I once served a church where the tradition of the bible study was for the Vicar to present, either from their own knowledge or from a prescribed curriculum, the last word on The Word.  This is not at all how I had learned to lead a Bible Study, it did not feed me and as a result, it was not fulfilling for anyone. 

But it was natural.  We so desire to understand, or more accurately, to KNOW what the Scripture is about and what it is telling us. Rabbi's have been arguing about God's word for millennia, Christian and Muslim scholars have spilled thousands of gallons of ink exploring these texts, and Jeff Bezos continues to make millions on daily readers, commentaries and questionable scholarship about the same.  Because we want to KNOW what these sometimes confusing, often conflicting, consistently challenging texts are trying to tell us.  We want to KNOW.

In the book of Genesis, Jacob wrestles with an angel and when it is all said and done, he has a broken hip and anew identity. That story, at least, makes sense to me.  We have to wrestle, actually put our hands on and struggled with, the words of God.  We have to wake in the literal or figurative dark night of our lives and open the book - not a book about the book, but the actual BOOK - and read the words. Any responsible translation will do.  And find in that work, that dedicated, disciplined, personal and tiresome work, our own identity in relationship to God.  And it will leave a mark.