Monday - April 3, 2023

SCRIPTURE Isaiah 48.18 Oh, that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea… WORDS OF HOPE Right or Righteous? On this Monday of Holy Week, is it more important to be righteous than it is to be right? If you do not have love, then you have gained nothing by being right. Words with malice, judgment, and manipulation in them defeat the purpose of being right. Some people look at the surface and judge incorrectly, so isn’t it great that God never asked us to judge? You can be right, but that doesn’t always mean it is time to be right. Sometimes being righteous means being patient, kind with your words, and sincere. If I’m right, what does it gain me if my sister is harmed? Today, people have a hard time coming together if they don’t always agree. Isn’t it more righteous to agree to disagree in spirit, not just in word, by coming together to the same table? I’d rather not know anything. Consider me a fool. They call me an idealist, but I ask, “Do I have to be of a certain religion to feed the hungry?” No one I ever helped ever refused me because of my sexual orientation, the color of my skin, or any of my personal beliefs. A man dying of hunger will rarely refuse a meal. Should we make requirements of those who want to give? There is something truly beautiful in coming together. I want to forget about who is right and who is wrong and laugh over the silliness of it all. How did things get so far away from us? We are so divided now. Being righteous is forgiving when it is hard, when you know you are right, and when he or she is your enemy. Invite your enemy to your table. You are the gift the world needs. The love has to start somewhere, and it is with you. PRAYER Lord, show me a table where a Christian and a Muslim sit together. On another end, let there be an atheist next to a Rabbi, a prostitute next to a saint, a monk next to an assassin, and an Israeli next to a Palestinian. Let there be peace in our homes, so that when we leave, we can go in that peace with the hopes that it will spread to others. There is so little love for the stranger all because we don’t know who she is. Let the walls to our hearts come down and the doors swing open. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Jonathon McClellan Order of St. Francis and St. Clare

SCRIPTURE Isaiah 48.18 Oh, that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea… WORDS OF HOPE Right or Righteous?  On this Monday of Holy Week, is it more important to be righteous than it is to be right? If you do not have love, then you have gained nothing by being right. Words with malice, judgment, and manipulation in them defeat the purpose of being right. Some people look at the surface and judge incorrectly, so isn’t it great that God never asked us to judge? You can be right, but that doesn’t always mean it is time to be right. Sometimes being righteous means being patient, kind with your words, and sincere. If I’m right, what does it gain me if my sister is harmed? Today, people have a hard time coming together if they don’t always agree. Isn’t it more righteous to agree to disagree in spirit, not just in word, by coming together to the same table? I’d rather not know anything. Consider me a fool. They call me an idealist, but I ask, “Do I have to be of a certain religion to feed the hungry?” No one I ever helped ever refused me because of my sexual orientation, the color of my skin, or any of my personal beliefs. A man dying of hunger will rarely refuse a meal. Should we make requirements of those who want to give? There is something truly beautiful in coming together. I want to forget about who is right and who is wrong and laugh over the silliness of it all. How did things get so far away from us? We are so divided now. Being righteous is forgiving when it is hard, when you know you are right, and when he or she is your enemy. Invite your enemy to your table. You are the gift the world needs. The love has to start somewhere, and it is with you. PRAYER Lord, show me a table where a Christian and a Muslim sit together. On another end, let there be an atheist next to a Rabbi, a prostitute next to a saint, a monk next to an assassin, and an Israeli next to a Palestinian. Let there be peace in our homes, so that when we leave, we can go in that peace with the hopes that it will spread to others. There is so little love for the stranger all because we don’t know who she is. Let the walls to our hearts come down and the doors swing open. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Jonathon McClellan Order of St. Francis and St. Clare

SCRIPTURE  Nehemiah 9.14-15 You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees, and laws through your servant Moses. In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock; you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them. WORDS OF HOPE As Lent nears its end, today’s reading is from a Hebrew Scripture prayer of praise to God from the Prophet Nehemiah. The wise leader of his people is reminding them of God’s past mercies and acts of grace in the most effective technique a public speaker can use to inspire and captivate his audience: Storytelling. -And the more familiar the story, the better the audience remembers the lesson connected to it. Nehemiah is telling the Hebrew people a tale of Moses they have heard since birth and could usually repeat orally, since theirs was a society of very few readers. They knew of the heroic and miraculous events of their history through repetitions around the glow of campfires, not eBooks. They looked forward to reliving past triumphs through the best storytellers among them and Nehemiah was among the most popular. His job was to inspire a discouraged and exhausted people to restore their former glories through the almost impossible task of rebuilding the walls of their fallen city. He inspired them well because in a near-miraculous amount of time, they actually did it! In all my years of teaching the very young as a minister to children, age never separated us in doing together what we loved best: sharing the greatest stories ever told, and each time gaining a little more insight into our own lives through their timeless adventures. Even now, when I talk to friends about the trials of Jonathan and David or the courage and selfless sacrifices of Joseph or Abigail, I feel their joys and sorrows as if they had been members of my own family. And spiritually, they were. We also learn some of our best lessons through those ancient family members’ mistakes, and their mistakes were generous in number. The Bible writers never failed to report the frailties in the humanity of its superheroes. But, as in today’s text, the grace and empowerment of God in them never faltered. Do we still have any walls to rebuild as we reflect on our Lenten journey today? There is always time and near-miraculous events can still happen. And yes, there are still prophets around to inspire us if we are alert and open to their wisdom. PRAYER God of unforgettable stories, may the Prophets of Old teach us to be the Prophets of Today. Help us to learn from those great family legends that we may create even greater ones for our future generations to tell. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Dan Peeler Order of St. Francis and St. Clare

SCRIPTURE  Psalm 63: 1 “O God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek you;/ my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you/ as in a parched and weary land where there is no water. WORDS OF HOPE It’s the hottest, driest place in North America, with average summer daytime temperatures as high as 116 degrees and a record-breaking peak of 134. Death Valley, as described by Laura Cox, is as “hauntingly stark as its name suggests. With landmarks like the Devil's Golf Course, Badwater Basin, and Furnace Creek, its windswept plains, scoured hillsides, and craggy peaks evoke a sense of hardship and an otherworldly moonscape.” With an average annual rainfall of only 2.2 inches, any animal or plant life is a test of adaptability. In the scripture above from Psalm 63, David is in his own geographic and spiritual death valley— in the wilderness of Judah, parched in body and soul, exhausted, crying out to God for water, living water, to sustain him. Perhaps, like Jesus in the wilderness, he was beset by the temptation to give up, give in to lies. I know people who have endured such long dry spells in their lives—devoid of good health with recurring surgeries, hospital or rehab facility stays or confronting late-stage cancer with extensive debilitating chemo regimens. And like these and their caregivers, living with chronic pain day in and day out can dishearten even the most faithful. Incapacitating mental health issues depress the spirits as well and “dehydration” of body and soul can lead to distorted thoughts, delusions which old wounds or past family, societal, or theological abuse replay over and over, tearing away at the will to live. How awesome then to behold desert blooms—whether in vegetation or the revitalized and resurrected life. Currently Death Valley is awash in vibrant wildflowers—in a profusion not seen since 2016, as just the right amount of rain, in the right intervals, has coaxed the seeds from their protective coatings to burst forth in glory: a carpet of desert gold, resembling golden daisies, spottings of gravel ghost with such a pale stem that it seems the white flower is suspended in air, the purple phacelia plant, and desert five spot with pink petals forming a cup, with splashes of red inside, to name a few species. (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/us/death-valley-superbloom.html ) So too a complex set of factors—medical, relational, communal, miracle-- shaped by a Grace far greater than we can understand returns the daily beauty, vitality, and promise of our lives after such a wilderness. David experiences that renewal in Psalm 63 prompting him to give thanks: “So I will bless you as long as I live./ I will lift up my hands and call on your name.” (v.4) Astounding relief, gratitude, and joy are characteristic of our own desert blooming and often the desire to share our story and the Love-borne miracle. PRAYER God of All Creation, be for us like desert rain, restoring life, where there seemed to be only dry bones. We give you thanks for all the desert blooms in our world, renewing beauty and creating yet another generation of seeds for the next flourishing. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Dr. Pat Saxon

SCRIPTURE Matthew 22:23-32 ( The Inclusive Bible) “Woe to you religious scholars and Pharisees, you frauds! You pay tithes on mint, dill, and cumin while neglecting the weightier matters of the law— justice, mercy, and faithfulness. These you should have practiced without neglecting the others!” WORDS OF HOPE:  Equal Pay Day We all love a paycheck. Not because money itself is sacred, but because it signals survival, stability, and the possibility of rest. A paycheck tells us we can put food on the table, keep the lights on, fill the gas tank, and—if we are fortunate—breathe, plan, and imagine a better tomorrow. In a society that so often questions our worth, a paycheck quietly whispers: “your labor mattered today”. I remember my first paycheck like it was yesterday. I was 19 years old, in 2013, working in the food service department and as a cashier at my local grocery store in McKinney Texas—hairnet on, slicer humming, the scanner beeping, hands smelling faintly of cheddar and turkey, ambition clinging to every fingertip. When that paycheck hit my bank account, I felt unstoppable. Not because of the money itself, but because it carried affirmation: that my time, my energy, my presence had value. That my labor, my very body, was counted. That paycheck didn’t just pay me—it saw me. Paychecks are never neutral. They carry dignity, access, and choice. They shape whether we live in anxiety or breathe with relief, whether our families eat, whether our dreams survive the weight of survival. And yet, not everyone receives this affirmation equally. Women, trans and nonbinary people, gender-diverse folks, and people of color are too often told—through wages—that their labor is worth less. For some, a paycheck becomes not a sign of affirmation, but a quiet reminder of systemic injustice. In 2026, money surrounds us constantly. We cannot go a single moment without encountering it. The stock market scrolls endlessly across our screens. Gas prices rise and fall. Oil barrel prices dominate the news. Cash registers ring in stores, coins clink, bills rustle in wallets and purses. And increasingly, money has become invisible—moving through debit and credit cards, tapped and swiped, transferred via PayPal, Zelle, Cash App, and bank apps. People buy groceries online, order furniture, shop for clothes, even purchase cars, all without ever touching a coin. Money is heard, seen, touched, and sometimes entirely invisible—but it shapes every decision, every measure of security, every small comfort. In 1973, Pink Floyd captured this reality with uncanny insight. On The Dark Side of the Moon, the track “Money” pulsed with irony, critique, and hypnotic rhythm. Coins clinked; lyrics cut through illusion. Money promises freedom, yet it can tighten invisible chains; it offers comfort, yet deepens inequality; it grants choice, yet conceals exploitation. Listening today, the song feels prophetic. At 32, working in diversity, equity, and inclusion in Plano, Texas, my paycheck looks different than it did in the deli and at the register. It pays bills, buys groceries, fills the gas tank, and—every once in a while—grants small, sacred joys: a coffee from my favorite coffee shops, a treasure at Half Price Books. Yet, in 2026, a painful contradiction persists. We seem to have endless money for war, weapons, and destruction—but not enough to ensure dignity. Not enough for fair wages. Not enough to protect immigrants seeking safety. Not enough to uplift LGBTQIA+ communities. Not enough to house and care for unsheltered neighbors. Not enough to support those living in less fortunate conditions, locally or globally. Budgets are moral texts. Scarcity is rarely the problem—it is a choice. The choice to fund harm rather than healing, control rather than compassion, power rather than people. That is why Equal Pay Day matters. Not as ceremony, not as symbolism, but as moral reckoning. It exposes the uncomfortable truth: not all labor is valued equally. Women, trans and nonbinary people, and gender-diverse workers—especially Black, Indigenous, and people of color—still earn less for the same work. Some stretch every dollar. Others absorb rising costs without hesitation. Equal pay is not greed. It is dignity. It is recognizing that work is work—regardless of gender identity, race, sexuality, ability, immigration status, or background—and that compensation should reflect worth, not bias. If money reveals what we value, then Equal Pay Day asks the holy, unsettling question: who are we still failing to value fully? The God of the living calls us to resist systems that dehumanize. To lift every laborer, every neighbor, every marginalized body. To align faith with finances and values with action. Money—visible in cash, on screens, or entirely virtual—will continue to shape the world, but it does not get the final word. God sees the laborer, the immigrant, the unhoused neighbor, the marginalized body, the exhausted worker, the quiet hope that refuses to fade. When we choose justice and love in how we handle money, we participate—here and now—in the kin-dom God is still bringing to life: a world where all are valued, all are honored, and all are free. PRAYER Holy One, You see every worker, every displaced family, every unhoused neighbor, everybody carrying the weight of survival. Forgive us for the ways we have funded harm while neglecting dignity. Teach us to hold money with open hands, to resist systems of violence, and to invest in justice, mercy, and faithfulness. May our paychecks, our budgets, and our advocacy reflect your kin-dom—a world where all are valued, all are protected, and all are free. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Reed Kirkman