July - 2020

UCC Daily Devotional: Knowing Good and Evil

UCC Daily Devotional: Knowing Good and Evil

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” - Genesis 3:4 (NRSV) (Psst, white folks. This one’s for you.) The white colonizers who came to the land we live on now invariably thought themselves to be good guys wielding peaceful tools: a cross, a hoe, an oar. They maintained that they came here for religious freedom, or to grow food and escape poverty,

UCC Daily Devotional: Scammers vs. Holy Spirit

UCC Daily Devotional: Scammers vs. Holy Spirit

“See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” - Matthew 10:16 (NRSV) Let me begin by saying, please do not send me any $400 gift cards! I mention this because recently hundreds of people received a fake email that purported to be from me but in reality it was the work of an anonymous scammer trying to separate goodhearted folks from their money. Apparently, this gift card hoax has happened to many other past

UCC Daily Devotional: Small but Spicy

UCC Daily Devotional: Small but Spicy

Again Jesus said, “What shall we say the Realm of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.” - Mark 4:30-32 (NIV) For as long as I’ve been active in the church, people have been telling me it’s dying. With charts and graphs and data, I have been told many

UCC Daily Devotional: At a Distance

UCC Daily Devotional: At a Distance

Then God said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship at a distance. Moses alone shall come near the LORD; but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.” - Exodus 24:1-2 (NRSV) The covenant is signed, sealed, delivered. The laws are outlined. The holy days are marked for observance. It has been a long journey to this point, but finally the ancient Israelites can celebr

UCC Daily Devotional: Keep The Child Alive

UCC Daily Devotional: Keep The Child Alive

Then the king said, “Do not kill the child, but give him to the woman who wants him to live, for she is his mother!” - 1 Kings 3:27 (NLT) My younger brother and I had quite a few heated confrontations while growing up. Our clashes could last for days. But every day when dinner time rolled around, we had to at least stop yelling and adopt a civil tone with each other, because Mother would not countenance unbrotherly behavior at the dinner table. The times when we allowed o

UCC Daily Devotional: How Can We Sing?

UCC Daily Devotional: How Can We Sing?

By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down and there we wept. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? - Psalm 137:1-4 (NRSV) Many of us are distraught about singing these days, wondering when and how we will be able to sing God’s song together again in this strange pandemic. More to the psalmist

UCC Daily Devotional: Test Everything

UCC Daily Devotional: Test Everything

But test everything; hold fast to what is good. - 1 Thessalonians 5:21 (NRSV) My daughter is the Total Skeptic variety of PK (Pastor’s Kid): not interested in church, not inclined to simply accept what she is being taught or what her father is preaching about. Once she asked me about the Holy Spirit, and I brought her to the window to point out the swaying trees, attempting some poetic apologetics: “Ah! The Holy Spirit is like the wind. We can feel the wind, we can observ

UCC Daily Devotional: Protest and Praise

UCC Daily Devotional: Protest and Praise

As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people continually say to me, “Where is your God?” - Psalm 42:1-3 (NKJV) The day after Rayshard Brooks was murdered by an Atlanta police officer, I served on a team of “protest chaplains” as people gathered to express grief and rage at police for yet another Black man ne

UCC Daily Devotional: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

UCC Daily Devotional: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. - Psalm 139:14a (NRSV) I wonder how old the psalmist was when they wrote this psalm. I wonder what gender they were, if they were short or tall, if they had big feet or if their ears stuck out. I wonder about the color of their skin, the color of their eyes, the texture of their hair. I wonder how much the psalmist weighed. I wonder if their skin was smooth or wrinkled, if they still had all their teeth, or if their e

UCC Daily Devotional: In/Correct Protest

UCC Daily Devotional: In/Correct Protest

So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the vintage of the earth, and he threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God. And the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the wine press, as high as a horse’s bridle, for a distance of about two hundred miles. - Revelation 14:19-20 (NRSV) A lot of people have been expressing a lot of opinions about the wrong ways to protest injustice. Apparently there are correct ways to express

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