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Monday

Psalm 4.1 “Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress, be merciful to me and hear my prayer.”

This is a Psalm for unsettled times, for when we are struggling with the way the world is. The psalm poet is right in there, telling his heart to God and demanding an answer. God is righteous and faithful, so the person praying assumes God is for all those who seek to live righteous and faithful lives in a world where that is difficult and costly. God’s response is immediate, even as the prayer is uttered God hears. This is a prayer for resilience under pressure, and wisdom to live well.

Tuesday

Psalm 4.2 “How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?”

What causes distress for the psalm poet is all the evidence pointing to a society where God is side-lined and replaced with more immediately satisfying life goals. God is whatever we can own, enjoy and control – except such things finally control us – false gods. To love delusions and seek false gods is to turn away from the source of life, and to spend life chasing after ‘emptiness’ or ‘delusions’. It is an inescapable cost and consequence of loving God to feel in our own hearts the insult to the glory and love of God that comes from God being ignored, mocked, or replaced with the false gods that promise much and deliver only emptiness.  

Wednesday

Psalm 4.3 “Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself; the Lord will hear when I call to him.”

‘Godly’ is an old fashioned word these days. But it does give the strong hint that such a person thinks, lives, feels and acts with reference to God, and not to false gods! God has set apart the committed person, the one who stays faithful to the call and the commands of God. Godliness is a lifestyle, a following of Jesus that is a way of being; what Paul meant when he urged the Galatians ‘to keep in step with the Spirit.’ In the loud cacophony of competing voices claiming our allegiance, the Lord hears the cry of the heart, and every prayer of lament or praise, of trust and love. 

Thursday

Psalm 4.4-5 “In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent. Offer right sacrifices, and trust in the Lord.”

Not all anger is sin. But if anger is allowed to simmer into resentment, or explode in abusive words, or distil down into despair, or corrode goodwill so that it turns to bitterness – then, yes, such anger is sin. I’m not sure lying in bed going over the things that disturb, trouble or upset us is good for us – unless that whole fankle of feelings, with its knots and messiness, is handed over to God because it’s beyond our patience and capacity to make everything right! And yes, I know that’s a tapestry illustration! In an upsetting world, the psalm poet is giving good advice on dealing with the inevitable emotional fallout – hand it over and trust God to sort it.

Friday

Psalm 4.6 “Many are asking, who can show us any good? Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord.”

We are now in a culture and society where sensitive souls wonder at the way things are going. The marginalisation of God, the stampede for stuff, the looming threats to stability, peace and human flourishing daily foregrounded on 24/7 news outlets – can anyone show us, remind us, what goodness looks like? Yes, that’s exactly what Christian witness is. The light of God’s face in Jesus Christ, shining from the faces and hearts of Christians whose actions and words tell a different story. “Shine Jesus shine, fill this land with the Father’s glory, blaze Spirit, blaze, set our hearts on fire.”

Saturday

Psalm 4.7 “You have filled my heart with greater joy than when grain and new wine abound.”

Good harvests and a full wine cellar were signs of joy, security and God’s blessing in the world of our psalm poet. But there’s a greater joy than even these. Yes, even in an unsettling world, where are faced day and daily with dire news and a world breaking up in division, hostility, suspicion and fear, those who trust God hold within themselves, as a gift of grace and a sign of hope, the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and the promise that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Sorry. Long sentence. Please read it again!

Sunday

Psalm 4.8 “I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

Now there’s a verse to memorise, and say to ourselves just as we put the light out at the end of the day! Something is incongruous when it’s the last thing we would expect! Like this Psalm which started with a prayer “Give me relief from my distress” and ends with “I will lie down in peace.” How do these two things make sense at the same time? It’s those last words: “You alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.” Those words stay true even when they are hard to believe – so sleep well. And if you don’t, remember – “He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” God has your back.

Browsing in a good library is one of the most unpredictable and enjoyable elements in a life of scholarship. The things you find when you're not looking for them! Oh we can call it serendipity, happenstance, luck, a fortuitous find – but now and again we discover something that we needed to find, and didn't know it till we found it. I want to introduce the word providence into the browsing experience as a way of looking at why and how such discoveries are made just in that moment.

Like so many of us, I have struggled to accept the new reality that is called the rehabilitation of the lie. I don't mean the occasional fib, or even the blatant untruth peddled as an excuse or explanation for a person's moral failure. We have entered a time when lying is an accepted form of political discourse; truth is being trashed in the grinders of deceit, evasion and malfeasance. We are well on the way to the enculturated acceptance of untruth as an alternative reality made to sound more real than the truth that is being obscured

I've been wondering what the hell is going on; yes, I use that word quite deliberately, because there is something hellish about a culture embracing the lie, ignoring the lie, admiring the liar, and thereby corroding the cultural holdfasts of trust, integrity, accountability and justice. 

And then yesterday, hiding amongst the academic tomes on the Old testament prophets, a slim and battered volume, the title so faded I had to take it from the shelf and open it. Written by Martin Buber and published in 1952, it is a brief study of several Psalms, the title Right and Wrong. The first chapter, 'The Generation of the Lie' pulled me in and I started reading it standing in the stacks, on floor 7, just before 11 o'clock, and I didn't move till I'd read those six pages. I took it over to the desk, sat down and read the chapter again, and made a few notes. The Generation of the Lie. A meditation on Psalm 12 written by a Jewish philosopher who lived through the years of propaganda, truth silencing, cultural vandalism and the growing malice against all who opposed, resisted, contradicted the Nazi narrative. 

Here is the first paragraph of Buber's meditation on Psalm 12, and the words that prompted his thought:

"The lie is the specific evil which man has introduced to nature. All our deeds of violence and our misdeeds are only as it were a highly-bred development of what this and that creature of nature is able to achieve in its own way. But the lie is our very own invention, different in kind from every deceit that animals can produce. A lie was possible only after a creature, man, was capable of conceiving the being of truth. It was possible only as directed against the conceived truth. In a lie the spirit practices treason against itself." (Page 12)

That last sentence: "In a lie the spirit practices treason against itself." Culture, society, human co-operation in community – all are threatened when the lie becomes the norm.

Buber goes on to explain why lies release toxins in our personal and social relationships: "The [psalmist] no longer suffers merely from liars, but from a generation of the lie, and the lie in this generation has reached the highest level of perfection as an ingeniously controlled means of supremacy." The Psalmist fears the disintegration of human speech, and prays for God to intervene. How do you pray against the lie? What do you ask of God in a culture where the words of the highest authorities can no longer be trusted and there is no accountability, no reset towards truth?

Here is Buber's take on what we pray for – freedom from the lie: 

"God is called upon to 'set free'. What He is to free from, is the present state of affairs which is characterised in what follows. The two basic qualities , on which men's common life rests, well-wishing or the good will – that is, the readiness to fulfil for the other what he may expect of me in our relation with one another – and loyalty and reliability – that is, a responsible accord between my actions and my explicit mind – have gone. They have disappeared so completely that the basis of men's common life has been removed. The lie has taken the place, as a form of life, of human truth, that is, of the undivided seriousness of the human person with himself and all his manifestations." (Page13)

"The basis of men's common life has disappeared…"That's the danger of the lie – the corrosion of the supports that enable the building of robust, durable relationships in community, including the community of nations. 

We are now living in the generation of the lie. Much that Buber wrote in this brief essay on Psalm 12 is now visible, audible and becoming clearer and louder. Psalm 12 is a Psalm for our time, and Buber's analysis of evil, and his diagnosis of the lie as a lethal virus resonates powerfully against the backdrop of contemporary politics in the United States. And the consequences are reverberating across the world, amplified by our hyper-connectedness across borders, cultures and nations. 

Psalm 12 finishes with a prayer of trust for a time like this. I suspect too for a time when silence is no longer a morally sound option:

You, Lord, will keep the needy safe
    and will protect us forever from the wicked,
⁸ who freely strut about
    when what is vile is honoured by the human race.      

 

Down at the University Library this morning, reading, browsing, and thinking. This book is a sobering read for those who ever think Christian Nationalism is a valid form of Christian existence.

The parallels are clear between what happened in Germany in the 1930s and what is taking place in some forms of so-called evangelicalism embedding itself in the machinery of State power. What happened then was the reduction of the German church to the will of the State, the neutering of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the collaboration of religious authorities with the values, policies and actions of the Nazi party, in exchange for protection and power.

Out of the threat of such dangerous compromise and, let's use the word, apostasy, came the Confessing Church. These were people and communities of faith who refused to toe the party line, who rejected the Aryan paragraph, and who formulated the Barmen Declaration.

Many of these courageous witnesses were persecuted, imprisoned or martyred for their adherence to the teaching and final authority of the teaching, person and truth of Jesus Christ. They knew, to the depth of their souls, that Jesus is Lord, not Caesar, not Hitler, and not any other who claims and is given the adulation of those who claim uncritical allegiance over their lives, their values and final loyalty.

Just to be clear. This is a book of original documents, showing what was actually written by those who fully supported the church being co-opted into the Nazi propaganda machine. There are huge resources of historical and theological scholarship conducted over the last 80 years analysing the how and the why of the State church capitulation to Hitler. The evidence of how and why is in documents like these. And with that evidence the most severe of warnings that such capitulation can become a reality in any age given the right circumstances of discontent, grievance, scape-goating of others, and a church desperate for secular approval and cultural status.

Note the photograph on the book cover, with the swastika as the central panel, dominating the cross. The official banner of the German Church

Monday

Matthew 5.20 “For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

The law of God was always intended as a guide to life, a way to be walked and a light in dark places or at dark times. It was not a set of rules to keep, but a way of loving God that sets the heart free. Jesus calls us, his followers, not to break the rules, but to go further. When the law is written on the heart, then our personal obedience becomes a matter of love, a way of showing we are God’s children. In other words, obedience is love for God made personal.

Tuesday

Matthew 5.21-22 “You have heard that it was said to people long ago, “Do not murder.” But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgement.”

It’s about the heart, that mixture of thoughts and feelings and motives that governs how we behave and treat others. Anger is many things: simmering resentment, corrosive envy, gnawing bitterness, wounded grievance, toxic jealousy, inflammatory rage. Those inner thoughts and emotions that create in us the will to harm someone else. That, said Jesus makes us subject to judgement. To wish harm is to cause harm, to the other, and to us.

Wednesday

Matthew 5.22b “Again, anyone who says to his brother or sister ‘Raca!’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says ‘You fool’, will be in danger of the fires of hell.”

The Jewish law provided for those public insults, which could be dealt with at the level of the magistrate’s court (Sanhedrin). Jesus is talking about the inner springs of such insulting language. To ridicule, to humiliate, to despise, to diminish another person – these words and actions spring from a heart that default is to insult rather than respect. And it’s not good enough says Jesus! The danger is that left unchecked, devaluing others, and taking pleasure in their hurt, demonstrates a heart no longer caring about God or others. And that’s a dangerous place to frequent.

Thursday

Matthew 5.23-24 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.”

These words are amongst the most challenging in the whole Sermon. We can’t come to worship a God of holiness and faithful love while there is resentment and hurt are churning away in our hearts. Sure, we can’t force reconciliation if someone is determined to keep the hurt and the grievance going. But as Paul said, “So far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” Yes, practice a righteousness that knows how to go further than the strict rights and wrongs of a situation.

Friday

Matthew 5.27-28 “You have heard that it was said, ’Do not commit adultery’. But I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” 

“But I tell you…” Six times in chapter five Jesus shows his authority by making it very clear, obedience isn’t just about what we do; it is about the state of the heart. Adultery is hardly the most edifying subject for a ‘Thought for the Day’, you might think. But faithfulness, trust, covenant promises – these are the moral supports of a community, and Jesus knows the threat to them starts in a heart that has already betrayed them. It matters what we think, because out of the heart comes the motive and energy to act, for better or worse.

Saturday

Matthew 5.38-39 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

Those who know the Gospel story know that Jesus was assaulted repeatedly at his trial. This is not a call to pacifism; it is the way of Jesus in which the chain reaction of violence is halted by personal non-retaliation. The same principle says by walking the second mile willingly you take back control from the one who uses force. These are hard sayings, and each of us has to find how they apply in the relationships and circumstances of our everyday. Following Jesus will take us into unfamiliar and even uncharted territory in our relationships – it’s called the way of the Kingdom of God!

Sunday

Matthew 5.42 “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”

Really? But let’s ask, how does God treat us? Or at least, how would we want God to treat us? How should God answer our prayers? Generously, we would hope, and responsively, as one who knows our need. Right first time, says Jesus! Now go and do likewise! Be the answer to someone else’s asking for help. And if they don’t deserve it, give anyway, and demonstrate you are salt that has not lost its saltiness!

Tapestry of 'Wild Goose, Celtic sympbol of the Holy Spirit.

Photo of King's College Aberdeen.

Painting, David Hockney, The Sermon on the Mount. 

Monday

1 Peter 1.1 Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia…”

None of your informal “Hi”, the casual greeting of the digital age. This letter comes from Apostle Peter, and its recipients are geographically all over the place. Those early Christians are special people – God’s elect, therefore chosen for blessing; strangers in the world so they can expect to be either ignored or given a hard time; scattered so separated into small communities trying to find ways of being faithful to Jesus. Not much has changed. Those following Jesus are still strangers, a scattered minority, but – God’s elect, “kept by the power of God.” That’s you, and me.

Tuesday

1 Peter 1.2 “Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying power of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood.”

Each Christian is held within the triple lock of God’s electing grace, the Spirit’s working in our lives, and the cleansing power of the blood of Christ. This is both privilege and calling, to blessing and service. We are chosen ‘for obedience to Jesus Christ”. It is the sanctifying work of the Spirit that enables and empowers that glad obedience. Peter is telling Christians faced with all the pressures of a suspicious and powerful culture, you’re not on your own. Through Christ you are drawn into the eternal purposes of the Triune God – and “you are kept by the power of God.”

Wednesday

1 Peter 1.2 “Grace and peace be yours in abundance.”

Or as in another translation, “Grace and peace be yours to the fullest measure.” Grace and peace, as much as you can contain, and then God expands our capacity. Grace is God’s self-giving in Christ, undeserved, utterly unlooked for, free, but always seeking the response of an answering love of grateful glad obedience. Peace is that pervasive sense that nothing can separate from God’s love, and that God’s grace is sufficient whatever comes our way. These are the signs of God’s work within and amongst the people of God. Elect, strangers, scattered, but graced with peace.

Thursday

1 Peter 1.3 “Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…”  

Praise is one of the highlighted words in the Christian vocabulary. Likewise mercy is one of the key words of the Christian Gospel. Paul says, “Because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ…” God’s mercy is experienced as forgiveness, a renewed heart, a cleansed conscience, in other words a new birth into a living hope. Peter and Paul had their differences, but on the meaning of the cross and resurrection they used the same terminology – mercy and hope.

Friday

1 Peter 1.4 “…and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you.”

I wonder if Peter was remembering the words of Jesus about having treasure in heaven where thieves can’t steal it, and rust doesn’t corrode it? There is nowhere safer than heaven for all that is most important to us.  Our inheritance in Christ is “untouched by death, unstained by evil, unimpaired by time.” This is the kind of assurance we sing of in a hymn like “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine”! Peter is building up the faith and hope of a community wondering what kind of future lies ahead. It’s one in which all that matters most is secure, because “kept in heaven.”

Saturday

1 Peter 1 “…who through faith are shielded by God’s power till the coming of salvation that is ready to be revealed at the last time.”

Kept by the power of God, through faith shielded by God’s power, our inheritance guarded in heaven. Despite all the odds loaded against these small Christian communities, immersed in the power of the Roman Empire, exposed to massive temples and the cultural pressures of not conforming, they are ultimately, and finally safe. The elect of God, kept by the power of God, sanctified by the Spirit, sprinkled with the blood of Christ which is a defiant statement of identity – this is who we are, and Christ is to whom we belong. Salvation will surely come – till then we are safe.

Sunday

1 Peter 1.6 “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

Peter knows about suffering first-hand. His own psychological and spiritual collapse after denying Jesus; then witnessing the trial and execution of Jesus, his death and burial. Then there was the morning the earth moved with the news of Jesus risen, and that meeting of the guilty and broken-hearted Peter with One who simply asked, “Do you love me?” “God has not promised, sun without rain, joy without sorrow, peace without pain.” Peter could have written that – and we each know the truth of that mixture of suffering and joy that is our life. Read 1 Peter 1.1-5 again. You’re safe.

Monday

Matthew 5.1-2 “Now when he saw the crowds, Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them, saying:”

Right, let’s ask the hard question first! Did Jesus mean what he said? Is the Sermon on the Mount (SM) meant to be a template for how we live our lives? Is it practical, sensible, even possible, to live up to the commands and promises of the Sermon on the Mount? If so, why do we find it so hard? Why have there been so many wrestling matches with the text to make it easier to live up to the demanding words of Jesus?  SM test 1: Do I forgive others as I have been forgiven?

Tuesday

Matthew 5.1-2 “Now when he saw the crowds, Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them, saying:”

“The Law was given by Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (Jn 1.17) The Law was given on a mountain; grace and truth are now spoken in a new covenant, the law written on the heart. Jesus as a teacher with authority, sits, and teaches, and speaks the grace and truth that is the manifesto of the Kingdom of God. The Sermon on the Mount (SM) gathers together the values and principles, the guidance and commands, of the One who comes to teach and to live the life of loving obedience to God. SM test 2: Do I follow (understand and do) what Jesus says?

Wednesday

Matthew 5.13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again.”

Saltiness is the unique quality of our personal devotion to Jesus. Saltiness is our determination to seek first above all else the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness. Saltiness is also wise determination to build our life on the rock-solid foundation of hearing and doing the words of Jesus. Jesus teaches his followers to live differently, to act and think and behave in ways that enact before the world the ways of Jesus as signs of the Kingdom of God. We have only followed what Jesus says when his teaching is followed up by who we are. Salt serves it purpose by making a difference by its presence. SM test 3: Am I maintaining my saltiness?  

Thursday

Matthew 5. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”

Jesus is the Light of the World, and his disciples, those of us who confess him as Lord and follow his teaching, are the reflected radiance of that light. The Sermon on the Mount is the handbook that describes the spiritual power source of “the light that gives light to everyone in the house.” You, (plural) – the Christian community, are like a city visible in the darkness for miles around, because the accumulated light makes it stand out. Those who believe Jesus meant what he said, by relying on God’s grace, and who seek to live out, and live into the teaching of Jesus, will stand out in the surrounding gloom. SM Test 4: So, as followers of Jesus and practitioners of his teaching, do we stand out in the surrounding gloom? See Philippians 2.14-16.

Friday

Matthew 5.16 “Let your light shine before everyone, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

What good deeds? Those actions of kindness and compassion that go the second mile. Those words that rather than obscure the truth, are words where yes is yes, and no is no. That way of being in which Christian anger management uses the levers of forgiveness, applying the brakes that restrain and retrain the way we speak to and about others. Those attitudes to others that seek reconciliation, and work towards neighbourliness, so that we can come to offer worship without embarrassment.     SM Test 5: Am I light that by my good deeds gives light to everyone in the house?

Saturday

Matthew 5.19 “Whoever practises and teaches these commands, will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

By practising what Jesus teaches, we teach others the ways of the Kingdom of God. Forgiveness is a practice; truthful speech is a practice; compassion to those who suffer, considerate neighbourliness, generosity with our stuff – these are practices in which we work out the teaching of Jesus. The Sermon on the Mount is a Highway Code for those seeking to follow faithfully after Jesus. Of course some of Jesus’ saying are hard to put into practice, but in the everyday life that is ours there are countless times when we are called to be salt and light, to take up our cross and follow. SM Test 6: Is my life a persuasive lesson in what it means to follow Jesus?

Sunday

Matthew 5.48 “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

No pressure there then! No, in this life on this earth we will never be perfect, but that is the goal and the end of Christian life. The word does not mean flawless, it means complete and whole. God loves his enemies, we should too. God blesses people like the rain, generous and un-choosy; likewise our love for others can’t be just for those that we think ‘deserve it.’ God is most revealed in Jesus. He is our paradigm, the single criterion by which we examine ourselves. SM Prayer: “To be like Jesus, all I ask, to be like him.” Amen