Sacred Text: Excerpts from John 20
It’s been a week and a half since Easter, and the urgency, the activity, the fear of Holy Week—in which Jesus was captured and executed—this activity is passed. The surprise of Easter has also passed—the discovery of the empty tomb, the wonderment, the rejoicing… That too is now passed, and we are left wondering what do we do after Easter?
The story of Thomas provides a realistic model of how we might continue in faith in a world full of doubt. It may seem a bit odd to think of Thomas as a model—growing p, calling someone a “doubting Thomas” was a way of dismissing them as overly skeptical. It comes from this story—Thomas wasn’t with the group when Jesus originally appeared, and claims “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands…. I will not believe”.
Maybe Thomas is the realist—I certainly see myself in his character. Thomas knew Jesus was taken, and killed. He had been dead for three days. Peter and some of the disciples saw the empty tomb, but what a tragedy: they didn’t understand, says the gospel of John; someone had taken Jesus body. There’s the story of Mary, but this is only second hand. What is Thomas to believe: Jesus is dead, not alive.
Thomas wasn’t with the other disciples that first evening. The others were gathered, doors locked for fear of their persecutors. Jesus appeared to them then. But Thomas wasn’t there when Jesus came. The story doesn’t tell us why—was it too painful to be gathered together in the memory of their dead teacher? Perhaps Thomas had drawn away to be alone, to think, or to pray. Or perhaps, even, to despair.
Thomas wants proof that such a miraculous event could actually happen. Thomas does not want to succumb to wishful thinking. He rejoins the disciples. And after what must have been a long week, Jesus came among them again and Thomas answers with joy “My Lord and my God!”
We often draw on second-hand stories, stories from the Bible that teach us about God, stories from each other, when we’ve seen God in our own lives. But sometimes, we need more—and we rightly cry out to God “I want to see you in the flesh!” We may not be given an apparition of Jesus saying “Behold”—but I do think that if we look hard enough we can see God in our lives.
I said before that Thomas might provide a realistic model of faith. If he makes the most famous statement of doubt in the Bible, he also makes what I think is one of the most powerful statements of faith. A few chapters earlier in John, Jesus is going to back to Judea because Lazarus has died. “But haven’t they just tried to stone you there?” the disciples ask. But Thomas says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him”.
Thomas rightly recognized that following Jesus was a dangerous enterprise. But he believed in Jesus’ message, he loved his teacher so that he would follow him, even unto death. Again this was no wishful thinking faith—that everything would be fine.
This was true faith, true trust in following God even unto the valley of the shadow of death.
And so may we live in faith like Thomas, in a world in which we are so not sure that everything will work out right, in a world in which we have to keep going, even if we don’t have the benefit of a tangible presence of God. Let us seek God, and walk confidently with God even into the darkness.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Wholeness
“ ‘You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done … you are fierce with reality.’ … I now know myself to a person of weakness and strength, liability and giftedness, darkness and light. I now know that to be whole means to reject none of it but to embrace all of it.”
[Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak, pg. 70]
In psalm we prayed together, we asked God to “purge us with hyssop that we would be clean” We said, “wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow”. The psalmist longs for wholeness—longs for joy and gladness, for their crushed bones to rejoice. But there is darkness lurking, parts of psalmist that are dirty, that need to be purged. Wholeness in this vision involves removing some of the offensive parts.
The sacred text we read for today seemed to take a diametrically opposed perspective: for Parker Palmer, the way to wholeness was to embrace all of himself, the weakness and strength, liabilities and well as gifts—even darkness along with the light. Only by embracing all of these parts, says Palmer, was he able to leave behind his malaise & depression.
How do we reconcile these two perspectives— The natural tendency to want to reject the unclean parts of us, and the equally natural tendency to want to be accepted for who we are, flaws and all?
It’s kind of hard to imagine a biblical psalm with the sentiment of embracing the broken parts within ourselves. So many pleas for rescue are found there, along with plenty of humility. It seems a very modern idea, perhaps part of the self-esteem movement, that we should embrace our flaws without rejection or judgment.
And it might be modern. Or it might the model of Jesus himself, embracing the sinner, the unclean, the traitor-collaborator. If Jesus, if God does not condemn us for our faults, but loves us all the same, unconditionally; if God doesn’t reject the darkness, liability and weakness in us but loves us, loves us not despite these flaws, then perhaps it is a sacred wholeness to embrace all of oneself.
For myself, I’ve worked to embrace the fact that I can be a little… grumpy, a little self-centered, lacking in ways I wish I weren’t. It’s hard because I’d like to deny that I am that way at all. But when I recognize my weakness and strength, then I can love even these flaws, just as I would in a friend or spouse.
Embracing this wholeness isn’t license to give up the vision of leading a God-filled life. Rather, embracing all of our flaws lets us acknowledge the raw material we have to work with. And when we can embrace these unclean parts, paradoxically, we can then better bring our lives to God, and say “create in my a clean heart”: I am who I am, give me the wisdom to begin anew, forget my past mistakes, says the Psalmist.
The good news is that God loves the whole you, and though you may see yourself like the dirty snow on the side of the road, crusty and gray—God sees you purer than the most pristine snowfall, and want your weary, broken bones to rejoice.
Amen.
Moses: Here I am Lord, Please send someone else.
Following a reading of excerpts from Exodus 2-4.
"Here I am, Lord. Please, send someone else."
Moses says both these things, and because he does, he is perhaps a very approachable model for understanding our vocation, the work we are called to do with our lives—not our careers, but our lives.
Moses was born to a Hebrew mother, but because Pharoah was engaging in genocide against the Hebrews, his mother set Moses out in a basket in the river. He was found by Pharoah’s daughter who then hired his mother to nurse him. His mother must have been a formative influence: while Moses was raised as an Egyptian, he never forgot his Hebrew roots.
When I read the story, I see a Moses who is angry at the oppression of his people. He sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew—and maybe his anger overcame his self-interest of keeping your head down (and depending on your perspective, his anger may have overcome his better judgment). He saw this beating and he killed this Egyptian, and is then forced to flee.
Moses doesn’t put up with much—well, he puts up with a lot later on as a leader, but he’s consistently standing up for the oppressed. He’s fled now to another land, sitting a well. He sees some women trying to water their flocks get chased away by some other shepherds; he defends the women, and then marries one. That worked out pretty well for him.
And so, Moses is tending his father-in-law’s flocks when the passage we just read began. He sees a burning bush, hears God calling him, hides his face in fear. This may be Moses’ first encounter with God—we don’t know much about his religious life beforehand. Moses sees something amazing, he must be rejoicing inside that God is finally going to act on behalf of his oppressed people. Until Moses gets the news: God’s going to send Moses to Pharaoh. “Who am I to go to Pharaoh”—seems like a legitimate question. “What if they don’t believe me”, ok.
But as God outlines the plan, Moses ain’t buying it. At the end, he’s reduced to “God, I’m not that well spoken.” When that doesn’t work, I think he’s finally honest: O my Lord, please send someone else.
Many of us are in a similar situation. Perhaps there’s no burning bush, but there’s a tug on our hearts—God is calling us to do something. I feel it sometimes: I’m too weak, too busy, too tired, not good enough. And these are legitimate worries, but they’re hiding something else. I just really don’t want to do it.
God knows our limitation—there’ll be help we can draw on, just as God gave moses signs and aid in the form of his brother Aaron. But, “send someone else”—there is no one else. We’re it. We the church are God’s hands. You and I have each been given our own calling: there’s no one who can do your life’s work.
We will fail along the way, miss the mark, just like Moses did—things may seem to go very badly, we’ll have self-doubt, others will question our work. For someone who didn’t want the job, couldn’t speak very well, got so frustrated he smashed the ten commandments, Moses did pretty well with his life. And so we too we may do pretty well in life, if we stay in touch with God, with that burning bush moment, to sustain us on the journey that is our life.
Amen.
"Here I am, Lord. Please, send someone else."
Moses says both these things, and because he does, he is perhaps a very approachable model for understanding our vocation, the work we are called to do with our lives—not our careers, but our lives.
Moses was born to a Hebrew mother, but because Pharoah was engaging in genocide against the Hebrews, his mother set Moses out in a basket in the river. He was found by Pharoah’s daughter who then hired his mother to nurse him. His mother must have been a formative influence: while Moses was raised as an Egyptian, he never forgot his Hebrew roots.
When I read the story, I see a Moses who is angry at the oppression of his people. He sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew—and maybe his anger overcame his self-interest of keeping your head down (and depending on your perspective, his anger may have overcome his better judgment). He saw this beating and he killed this Egyptian, and is then forced to flee.
Moses doesn’t put up with much—well, he puts up with a lot later on as a leader, but he’s consistently standing up for the oppressed. He’s fled now to another land, sitting a well. He sees some women trying to water their flocks get chased away by some other shepherds; he defends the women, and then marries one. That worked out pretty well for him.
And so, Moses is tending his father-in-law’s flocks when the passage we just read began. He sees a burning bush, hears God calling him, hides his face in fear. This may be Moses’ first encounter with God—we don’t know much about his religious life beforehand. Moses sees something amazing, he must be rejoicing inside that God is finally going to act on behalf of his oppressed people. Until Moses gets the news: God’s going to send Moses to Pharaoh. “Who am I to go to Pharaoh”—seems like a legitimate question. “What if they don’t believe me”, ok.
But as God outlines the plan, Moses ain’t buying it. At the end, he’s reduced to “God, I’m not that well spoken.” When that doesn’t work, I think he’s finally honest: O my Lord, please send someone else.
Many of us are in a similar situation. Perhaps there’s no burning bush, but there’s a tug on our hearts—God is calling us to do something. I feel it sometimes: I’m too weak, too busy, too tired, not good enough. And these are legitimate worries, but they’re hiding something else. I just really don’t want to do it.
God knows our limitation—there’ll be help we can draw on, just as God gave moses signs and aid in the form of his brother Aaron. But, “send someone else”—there is no one else. We’re it. We the church are God’s hands. You and I have each been given our own calling: there’s no one who can do your life’s work.
We will fail along the way, miss the mark, just like Moses did—things may seem to go very badly, we’ll have self-doubt, others will question our work. For someone who didn’t want the job, couldn’t speak very well, got so frustrated he smashed the ten commandments, Moses did pretty well with his life. And so we too we may do pretty well in life, if we stay in touch with God, with that burning bush moment, to sustain us on the journey that is our life.
Amen.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Sacred Text for "Reverence"
Genesis 28:10-19a, NRSV,alt.
Jacob left Beer-sheba and went towards Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set.
Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder— set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
And the Lord stood beside him and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’
Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!’
And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’ So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel, that is “House of God”
Jacob left Beer-sheba and went towards Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set.
Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder— set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
And the Lord stood beside him and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’
Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!’
And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’ So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel, that is “House of God”
Reverence
Our service’s theme today is “reverence”. It might strike you as a bit of an odd choice, or at least a bit stuffy: irreverence is celebrated in our culture. An irreverent look at something—maybe Jon Stewart on the Daily Show— seems to imply an honesty, a light skepticism, an inability to suffer fools or the pompous gladly. All good things.
I don’t want to have to compete with Jon Stewart. But I don’t think I need to. The sacred text today tells what may be the familiar story of Jacob’s ladder. I want to use this story to say something about the importance of reverence, and how reverence is integral to our relationship with God.
In the story, Jacob is traveling, he’s left his father, he’s about to settle in a new place. It’s getting dark, it’s time to stop, and he lies down on a stone. The stone is a hint right away, as many cultures use stones to mark sacred places. Jacob dreams—and we know how God can dwell in dreams.
In his dream, Jacob sees a ladder, alternatively translated as a stairway, a stairway to heaven. He hears God speak to him, and God makes a promise to him.
So Jacob has an experience of the sacred, a closeness with God. He’s in thin place, a place where the dividing line between the holy and the ordinary is very thin. When we wakes up, he exclaims “Surely the Lord is in this place- and I did not know it! How awesome is this place!” He calls the place Bethel, translated: the House of God.
This is a moment of reverence. Reverence is an ability to feel awe, reverence is being attuned to the sacred, where the sacred actually is.
Surely the Lord is in this place, and that won’t change if we stopped paying attention. But if we don’t have reverence for this place, we might not notice it.
What are the thin places in your life? Is the church a place where you can experience awe, experience the sacred, experience God? Can you feel reverent in nature, in the woods or at the top of a mountain? Or in the pounding beats of music or dance?
It takes work to be open to awe, and ceremonies and rituals are ways to enhance our capacity for reverence. In the story we read today, Jacob marks the place with a stone for a pillar, and pours oil on it to honor it. A little later in the narrative of Genesis, Jacob returns to this spot to build an altar. He doesn’t need to do it—God was in that place even without the altar. But the altar, the pillar—they help mark the place as special, set apart.
And so it is with our worship service here. The things we do are not necessary to worship God—we can worship throughout our life, just as we can pray without any words or ritual at all. But this ceremony—the time for silence, the breaking of the bread, the reflection on a text: this worship service helps us make space for God, to make space for feelings of worship or awe.
There is a danger to ceremony and markers of reverence, that they become empty: A worship service where everyone’s not “really there” . Or worse yet, the danger is that we try to generate reverence when it is inappropriate: an abuse of reverence—calling it unpatriotic to criticize the government. But reverence is not obedience, or lack of dissent, or even skepticism.
Reverence is an openness to and acknowledgement of the Spirit, the presence of God.
May we all find ways to feel that presence, in worship and in our lives.
Amen.
I don’t want to have to compete with Jon Stewart. But I don’t think I need to. The sacred text today tells what may be the familiar story of Jacob’s ladder. I want to use this story to say something about the importance of reverence, and how reverence is integral to our relationship with God.
In the story, Jacob is traveling, he’s left his father, he’s about to settle in a new place. It’s getting dark, it’s time to stop, and he lies down on a stone. The stone is a hint right away, as many cultures use stones to mark sacred places. Jacob dreams—and we know how God can dwell in dreams.
In his dream, Jacob sees a ladder, alternatively translated as a stairway, a stairway to heaven. He hears God speak to him, and God makes a promise to him.
So Jacob has an experience of the sacred, a closeness with God. He’s in thin place, a place where the dividing line between the holy and the ordinary is very thin. When we wakes up, he exclaims “Surely the Lord is in this place- and I did not know it! How awesome is this place!” He calls the place Bethel, translated: the House of God.
This is a moment of reverence. Reverence is an ability to feel awe, reverence is being attuned to the sacred, where the sacred actually is.
Surely the Lord is in this place, and that won’t change if we stopped paying attention. But if we don’t have reverence for this place, we might not notice it.
What are the thin places in your life? Is the church a place where you can experience awe, experience the sacred, experience God? Can you feel reverent in nature, in the woods or at the top of a mountain? Or in the pounding beats of music or dance?
It takes work to be open to awe, and ceremonies and rituals are ways to enhance our capacity for reverence. In the story we read today, Jacob marks the place with a stone for a pillar, and pours oil on it to honor it. A little later in the narrative of Genesis, Jacob returns to this spot to build an altar. He doesn’t need to do it—God was in that place even without the altar. But the altar, the pillar—they help mark the place as special, set apart.
And so it is with our worship service here. The things we do are not necessary to worship God—we can worship throughout our life, just as we can pray without any words or ritual at all. But this ceremony—the time for silence, the breaking of the bread, the reflection on a text: this worship service helps us make space for God, to make space for feelings of worship or awe.
There is a danger to ceremony and markers of reverence, that they become empty: A worship service where everyone’s not “really there” . Or worse yet, the danger is that we try to generate reverence when it is inappropriate: an abuse of reverence—calling it unpatriotic to criticize the government. But reverence is not obedience, or lack of dissent, or even skepticism.
Reverence is an openness to and acknowledgement of the Spirit, the presence of God.
May we all find ways to feel that presence, in worship and in our lives.
Amen.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Reflection: Dreams
January 21, 2009
The theme this week is dreams, and it’s a particularly appropriate theme for this moment in history. On Monday, we honored the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, and the effect that his dream and determination had on our nation. The diverse crowds gathered on the Mall Monday & Tuesday demonstrated, in Obama’s words, the reality of the “dream of a King”, the dream that was Dr. King’s dream, the dream of the King of Kings, Jesus: the dream that we would be divided no more.
Often when we’re hopeful, we talk about dreams and the power they have to change the world, for surely we have seen that! And often when we are cynical or despairing, we warn of fairytale flights of fancy—the foolish dreams that have no chance of fruition, but need to be reigned in.
We use the term “dreams” metaphorically, to describe hopes, aspirations, visions for the future. We know deep in our souls that God can breathe into our dreams, that God can show us a future that is-not-yet.
The ancients too thought that God spoke to us in dreams, and the book of Genesis tells the story of that dreamer and dream-interpreter, Joseph (of the many colored coat) who saw a warning of famine in the dreams of the Pharaoh—danger, but also a way out
Today I want to talk about the danger of dreams.
When God inspires our dreams & dwells in them, we can receive the courage to go a different path. This past week, I traveled through the South & spent an afternoon in the Civil Rights museum in Memphis, Tennessee. In the stories of the marchers, freedom riders, the organizers, and the preachers, the compelling power of a God-given dream came through.
But ever present was the danger that came along with these dreams of dignity & justice. Dreaming of – and working for!—a different world can scare what the theologian Walter Wink & the Apostle Paul call “The Powers that Be”. Because dreams are by definition not-yet reality, those who like the world the way it is are threatened by God-given dreams.
I saw this too. The Memphis Civil Rights museum was attached to the Lorraine Motel, where the powers that be struck out and tried to snuff out the dream of God’s justice—the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was murdered by an assassin’s bullet.
Big dreams can bring big violence. But even the smaller, more daily dreams incite smaller, more daily resistance. Some of use dream of raising a family, yet struggle to afford it in a world not set up for work and parenting. Some of us dream of good health and a restoration to community, but are left in pain or exhausted from just leaving the house. Or dream of a good job, but struggle to find work we can believe in, or any work at all. Some of us dream that gender won’t limit what we can do or who we can love, but face prejudice from friends, employers and even fear violence.
What dreams do you struggle to live? What dangers have you faced?
But, if there is a danger in following a dream, there is danger in ignoring a dream given by God. In the sacred text for today, “Harlem”, Langston Hughes writes of “a dream deferred.” When dreams are blocked, deferred—they rot, they drag down, the pressure builds.
It is not only external powers that bring the danger of deferred dreams, but we ourselves. If a dream is burning inside us and we do not follow it, that dream can poison our souls. The examples are trite, but oh so true: someone stuck in the wrong career, ignoring God’s vocation; someone stuck in the closet, ignoring his true self.
Although God-inspired dreams point the way to a bright future, they are perilous. They bring danger if we live them and danger in equal measure if we do not.
And so, while the way of your dreams may be dark, rough & rocky, remember that but despite even murder, Martin Luther King’s dream lived on. Despite even murder, Jesus’ dream lived on and brought us together, here, today.
Amen.
Sacred Text for "Centering Down" Reflection
How good it is to center down!
To sit quietly and see one's self pass by!
The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic;
Our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences,
While something deep within hungers and thirsts for the still moment and the resting lull.
With full intensity we seek, ere the quiet passes, a fresh sense of order in our living;
A direction, a strong pure purpose that will structure our confusion
and bring meaning in our chaos.
We look at ourselves in this waiting moment - the kinds of people we are.
The questions persist: what are we doing with our lives? -
What are the motives that order our day?
What is the end in our doings? Where are we trying to go?
Where do we put the emphasis and where are our values focused?
For what end do we make sacrifices? Where is my treasure and what do I love most in life?
What do I hate most in life and to what am I true?
Over and over the questions beat in the waiting moment.
As we listen, floating up through all the jangling echoes of our turbulence, there is a sound of another kind –
A deeper note which only the stillness of the heart makes clear.
It moves directly to the core of our being. Our questions are answered,
Our spirits refreshed, and we move back into the traffic of our daily round
With the peace of the Eternal in our step.
How good it is to center down!
From Meditations of the Heart by Howard Thurman.
To sit quietly and see one's self pass by!
The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic;
Our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences,
While something deep within hungers and thirsts for the still moment and the resting lull.
With full intensity we seek, ere the quiet passes, a fresh sense of order in our living;
A direction, a strong pure purpose that will structure our confusion
and bring meaning in our chaos.
We look at ourselves in this waiting moment - the kinds of people we are.
The questions persist: what are we doing with our lives? -
What are the motives that order our day?
What is the end in our doings? Where are we trying to go?
Where do we put the emphasis and where are our values focused?
For what end do we make sacrifices? Where is my treasure and what do I love most in life?
What do I hate most in life and to what am I true?
Over and over the questions beat in the waiting moment.
As we listen, floating up through all the jangling echoes of our turbulence, there is a sound of another kind –
A deeper note which only the stillness of the heart makes clear.
It moves directly to the core of our being. Our questions are answered,
Our spirits refreshed, and we move back into the traffic of our daily round
With the peace of the Eternal in our step.
How good it is to center down!
From Meditations of the Heart by Howard Thurman.
Centering Down: Epiphany and the New Year
We celebrated epiphany at church this past Sunday—the recognition of the birth of Jesus by the Magi, the travelers from foreign lands who brought gifts of gold, frankincense & myrrh. Epiphany is an important holy day for the church—not just because we have a picturesque image of Three Kings all dressed up bearing gifts. The story’s told in the Gospel of Matthew, a gospel written about a very Jewish Jesus to a very Jewish audience—the recognition of Jesus’ birth by non-Jews, the Magi, is meant to highlight the universal nature of Jesus’ message.
Yet epiphany might be eclipsed in our lives by New Year’s, marked by much bigger parties at the least, a holiday shared with others throughout the culture. New Year’s is a time of transition—and for many, New Year’s resolutions and an examination of what we want to be doing differently with our lives.
The sacred text for today, “How good it is to center down”, fits well with both the reflection of New Year’s & the recognition of God in epiphany.
“Centering down” is what we do here, each week as we gather for 15 minutes of silent prayer & meditation at the beginning of rest & bread. It can be hard to sit down, expecting peace, yet have the questions beat in upon this sacred time. “What am I doing with my life, where am I trying to go.”
I am bit jealous, though: Howard Thurman ends the poem “Our questions are answered,Our spirits refreshed…” And I know I am still waiting for answers to my questions, but when I find it, I receive the peace for my spirit with gladness!
The Magi bring gifts, gifts of treasure. And the poem asks, “Where is my treasure and what do I love most in life?” Our treasure is what we value, what we strive for—our family, our money, our work, our church? New Year’s resolutions—going to the gym to take care of the body— these resolutions are an acknowledgement that in the small decisions of each day, we can lose track of the big treasures that matter most.
And so we center down. Each week, we listen for that deep note in the stillness of our hearts, for the whisper of God. We listen for God to remind us of treasures we forget were even possible. We listen for God to name the treasures that we already possess, the treasures we can offer to others, even to Jesus. Through a long Advent, we awaited the coming of Christ. We waited for God to speak. Now, we move back into the traffic of ordinary life, perhaps refreshed, hopefully with a just bit of the Eternal in our step.
Amen.
Yet epiphany might be eclipsed in our lives by New Year’s, marked by much bigger parties at the least, a holiday shared with others throughout the culture. New Year’s is a time of transition—and for many, New Year’s resolutions and an examination of what we want to be doing differently with our lives.
The sacred text for today, “How good it is to center down”, fits well with both the reflection of New Year’s & the recognition of God in epiphany.
“Centering down” is what we do here, each week as we gather for 15 minutes of silent prayer & meditation at the beginning of rest & bread. It can be hard to sit down, expecting peace, yet have the questions beat in upon this sacred time. “What am I doing with my life, where am I trying to go.”
I am bit jealous, though: Howard Thurman ends the poem “Our questions are answered,Our spirits refreshed…” And I know I am still waiting for answers to my questions, but when I find it, I receive the peace for my spirit with gladness!
The Magi bring gifts, gifts of treasure. And the poem asks, “Where is my treasure and what do I love most in life?” Our treasure is what we value, what we strive for—our family, our money, our work, our church? New Year’s resolutions—going to the gym to take care of the body— these resolutions are an acknowledgement that in the small decisions of each day, we can lose track of the big treasures that matter most.
And so we center down. Each week, we listen for that deep note in the stillness of our hearts, for the whisper of God. We listen for God to remind us of treasures we forget were even possible. We listen for God to name the treasures that we already possess, the treasures we can offer to others, even to Jesus. Through a long Advent, we awaited the coming of Christ. We waited for God to speak. Now, we move back into the traffic of ordinary life, perhaps refreshed, hopefully with a just bit of the Eternal in our step.
Amen.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Isaiah 40: Reading for "Advent: Peace"
Adapted from the NRSV and RSV versions of Isaiah 40:
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is over, that her iniquity is pardoned: For she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is over, that her iniquity is pardoned: For she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
A voice cries out: “prepare ye the way of the Lord in the wilderness, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: And the crooked shall be made straight. And the rough places plain: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.
The voice said, “Cry”. And I said, “What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the godliness thereof is as the flower of the field: The grass withers, the flower fades: Because the spirit of the Lord blows upon it: Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades: But the word of our God shall stand forever.
O Zion, herald of good tidings, Get up to a high mountain! O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, Lift up your voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: Behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead the mother sheep.
Advent Meditation: Peace. Isaiah 40
I love this passage from the prophet Isaiah—it appears in so many ways during advent. I picked an older translation just because there’s so much beauty in the poetry, so many other references to it. There’s the hymn “Comfort, comfort, o my people, speak of peace thus says our God.” And it’s scattered throughout Handel’s Messiah “….and all flesh shall see it together….”
It’s also theologically important- both as it was originally written, but also as a piece of text that the early church turned to to try to make sense of who Jesus was.
This passage was first written by someone in the school of Isaiah the prophet to speak Hope to the people of Israel who were in exile. Not quite in captivity, they were in “Babylon” not their homeland, living as somewhat subject people in a foreign land. And so, to these people, Isaiah is preaching Comfort: that the time of warfare, of exile is over.
Think back to the passage: The syntax is a little strange, but God is speaking here to what would be angels, heavenly beings, and commanding them to bring comfort to the people in captivity. And then the prophet hears this, hears a voice—“Prepare ye the way of the Lord—make a highway in the desert. We’re going to flatten the mountains, fill in the valleys” Why? So Israel can return home from exile--- this road is the road of return.
But all is not well; there is paradox: the prophet hears the voice, but asks “what should I cry?” All flesh is grass—we are transient, what hope is there? It’s a very existential question. The theologian Paul Tillich says that this passage is filled with rising and falling waves of darkness and light. Sure the Lord is great—but what does that mean, since we are so small? Against this transience, against humans withering like grass, stands God who is going to act in history and protect his people, like [in that ancient metaphor], a shepherd. The exile, the uprootedness, the separation from home,from God—this is ending.
But fast forward hundreds of years, and it doesn’t end. We have the book of Job—there’s suffering it says, and why doesn’t God act? Who knows… but we can’t count on God to bring us peace just because we’re good. There was the return from Babylon to Jerusalem, but the warfare is not over. A now, at the time of Jesus, Israel stands occupied, oppressed? by the Roman empire.
This section from Isaiah is kind of “ported over”, creatively re-interpreted to describe Jesus. The church sees John the Baptizer as saying “Prepare ye the way of the Lord”. And then in Jesus, the church sees that God has come; a kind of exile has ended. The end of this exile does not come in the form of a return to Jerusalem down a physical road, but in following “The Way”, as Christianity was originally called, The Way of Jesus. And so this reconciles how God can be good and strong and loving, and how yet the people of God could suffer so—the deliverance that God has promised comes in an entirely different form than expected.
What does that mean for us? We shouldn’t expect to find comfort and peace in this world—not peace “as the world gives”, not peace in the sense that there will be no warfare, no unemployment. (Though we shouldn’t for a moment give up working for that peace). Rather, the peace we can expect to find, the peace that God promises us—and it is a promise. It is a peace that comes from God amidst our suffering, available to all seekers, regardless of the chaos that still surrounds us.
Amen.
It’s also theologically important- both as it was originally written, but also as a piece of text that the early church turned to to try to make sense of who Jesus was.
This passage was first written by someone in the school of Isaiah the prophet to speak Hope to the people of Israel who were in exile. Not quite in captivity, they were in “Babylon” not their homeland, living as somewhat subject people in a foreign land. And so, to these people, Isaiah is preaching Comfort: that the time of warfare, of exile is over.
Think back to the passage: The syntax is a little strange, but God is speaking here to what would be angels, heavenly beings, and commanding them to bring comfort to the people in captivity. And then the prophet hears this, hears a voice—“Prepare ye the way of the Lord—make a highway in the desert. We’re going to flatten the mountains, fill in the valleys” Why? So Israel can return home from exile--- this road is the road of return.
But all is not well; there is paradox: the prophet hears the voice, but asks “what should I cry?” All flesh is grass—we are transient, what hope is there? It’s a very existential question. The theologian Paul Tillich says that this passage is filled with rising and falling waves of darkness and light. Sure the Lord is great—but what does that mean, since we are so small? Against this transience, against humans withering like grass, stands God who is going to act in history and protect his people, like [in that ancient metaphor], a shepherd. The exile, the uprootedness, the separation from home,from God—this is ending.
But fast forward hundreds of years, and it doesn’t end. We have the book of Job—there’s suffering it says, and why doesn’t God act? Who knows… but we can’t count on God to bring us peace just because we’re good. There was the return from Babylon to Jerusalem, but the warfare is not over. A now, at the time of Jesus, Israel stands occupied, oppressed? by the Roman empire.
This section from Isaiah is kind of “ported over”, creatively re-interpreted to describe Jesus. The church sees John the Baptizer as saying “Prepare ye the way of the Lord”. And then in Jesus, the church sees that God has come; a kind of exile has ended. The end of this exile does not come in the form of a return to Jerusalem down a physical road, but in following “The Way”, as Christianity was originally called, The Way of Jesus. And so this reconciles how God can be good and strong and loving, and how yet the people of God could suffer so—the deliverance that God has promised comes in an entirely different form than expected.
What does that mean for us? We shouldn’t expect to find comfort and peace in this world—not peace “as the world gives”, not peace in the sense that there will be no warfare, no unemployment. (Though we shouldn’t for a moment give up working for that peace). Rather, the peace we can expect to find, the peace that God promises us—and it is a promise. It is a peace that comes from God amidst our suffering, available to all seekers, regardless of the chaos that still surrounds us.
Amen.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Community as Context for Vocation
We often think of vocation—our calling—in very personal terms. We’re right to do so: God’s call to us is personal: we are unique, and must each seek out the direction God is leading us, to acknowledge the gifts that God has given us. Sometimes this vocation is a career, sometimes our vocation is found in the work we do in the evenings or on weekends, sometimes our vocation is not about our work at all but our joy.
But it is easy for our exploration of vocation to narrow in, and become essentially self-centered, for our scope of vision to see only me, my life. But such a narrow focus loses a critical element of God’s true call: community.
Like most things in the Christian faith, this sounds somewhat paradoxical: shouldn’t my vocation be all about me? A great novelist and preacher, Frederick Buechner, said that “Vocation is where your deep desire meets the world’s great need.” I think this is almost right—except we don’t just live in an undifferentiated world, we live (if we’re lucky) in communities, and certainly live with histories, in places, in neighborhoods. Our communities, our histories shape our vocations—they shape how we can use our gifts.
When we are baptized, we or our parents made promises to God—and these promises were made in front of a community; and indeed the church community makes promises to support us in the faith. Baptism is a sacrament that certifies that we are now forever joined to the church—the Christian community
Community is kind of a cheap word: many things we call communities are mere shadows of a true community: we can live in the midst of many others yet remain isolated, sharing little of our time and even less of our hearts with others. Like other true communities, Christian community—the kind Jesus advocated and the early church practiced— is intentional and mutual. The church is, in Dr. King’s words, “the beloved community”—the place where we can be transformed by God rather than conformed to the expectations of the world around us.
There’s a place for us all in true community. Paul, in one of his favorite metaphors, describes the church community as one body, made up of many diverse talents. Finding our vocation, then, is not finding how to get the most out of this world (money, success, achievement)—it’s about finding a context for a life, a meaningful place to give and to receive.
May we all cherish and nurture the communities that nurture us. As we have surely received, let us also give and find our place in the body of Christ.
Amen.
But it is easy for our exploration of vocation to narrow in, and become essentially self-centered, for our scope of vision to see only me, my life. But such a narrow focus loses a critical element of God’s true call: community.
Like most things in the Christian faith, this sounds somewhat paradoxical: shouldn’t my vocation be all about me? A great novelist and preacher, Frederick Buechner, said that “Vocation is where your deep desire meets the world’s great need.” I think this is almost right—except we don’t just live in an undifferentiated world, we live (if we’re lucky) in communities, and certainly live with histories, in places, in neighborhoods. Our communities, our histories shape our vocations—they shape how we can use our gifts.
When we are baptized, we or our parents made promises to God—and these promises were made in front of a community; and indeed the church community makes promises to support us in the faith. Baptism is a sacrament that certifies that we are now forever joined to the church—the Christian community
Community is kind of a cheap word: many things we call communities are mere shadows of a true community: we can live in the midst of many others yet remain isolated, sharing little of our time and even less of our hearts with others. Like other true communities, Christian community—the kind Jesus advocated and the early church practiced— is intentional and mutual. The church is, in Dr. King’s words, “the beloved community”—the place where we can be transformed by God rather than conformed to the expectations of the world around us.
There’s a place for us all in true community. Paul, in one of his favorite metaphors, describes the church community as one body, made up of many diverse talents. Finding our vocation, then, is not finding how to get the most out of this world (money, success, achievement)—it’s about finding a context for a life, a meaningful place to give and to receive.
May we all cherish and nurture the communities that nurture us. As we have surely received, let us also give and find our place in the body of Christ.
Amen.
Sacred Text: Community
From Paul, writing to the church at Rome:
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. (from Romans 12)
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. (from Romans 12)
Sacred Text: Peace
From Isaiah, Chapter 2
The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say,
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.’
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say,
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.’
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
Reflection: Peace
A number of years back, I spent some time working at the United Nations. I remember that part of the passage we just heard from Isaiah was inscribed on a giant wall facing the UN building: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war any more”.“Swords into plowshares”! Food, not war. What a hope of peace Isaiah presents—how captivating and seductive. The Lord’s house is established, and all the nations come—they come to Jerusalem, the capital of the kingdom of Judah, where Isaiah was writing from. They all want to learn the ways of God. And when everyone all starts listening to God, and when God himself starts arbitrating amongst nations—then we should have peace.
Peace. What a hope, that the horrors of genocide and war for power or land, that these horrors could end. But while it’s a very appealing image of peace, we should take two important warnings from it. (it’s not nice to criticize the ancient prophets, I’m going to do it anyway.)
Peace is coming, Isaiah says. It’s coming when God sits down in our capital, Jerusalem. It’s coming when all the other nations come to our capital, and acknowledge our God. Isaiah is hoping for a peace in which everyone else will acknowledge that his country is right. [To be fair, he spends plenty of time criticizing his country too] But still—to really look for peace requires us to be humble enough to admit that we might be the problem
Peace it coming, Isaiah says—It’s coming when God is sitting on the throne, judging disputes. When everyone falls in to line. Peace will come when what is right and good is clear to everyone.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but peace like that ain’t coming anytime soon. There will be disputes because even well-meaning people disagree, and then there will be disputes because a few people can screw it up for the rest of us. We should work toward the dream of peace, but again, need to have the humility to recognize that it might not work out.
So where does that leave us with peace?
In the book of John, Jesus gives a long discourse to his followers just before his death. He tells them that he is leaving them, and then says
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.I’m not sure what kind of peace this is, but it is different, radically so, from the peace that is present in the vision of Isaiah.
Jesus is offering a kind of peace that available despite having your friend & teacher tortured and murdered, despite having to flee from persecution. “Don’t be afraid,” he says. He telling his followers that there is a kind of peace they can have, even in the presence of war and violence. Even in the presence of economic crisis.
This is a peace that is not given as the world gives. Physical peace & justice (no war, basic living standards) is important, but Jesus is pointing us toward a psychological and spiritual peace. A peace that comes from connecting with God, from “storing up treasures in heaven” that cannot be destroyed by the discord here in earth.
I’m not quite sure how to get that peace, but it has something to do with practice—the practice of prayer, our spiritual formation in community—and it has something to do with the presence of God in our lives.
May that peace be with us, this day and every day forward.
Amen.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
A blog update
You'll notice that the format of this blog has changed recently. It's come alive again, after a year's hiatus. I'm primary posting (bi-weekly) reflections that I give at our church's weeknight service. They're informal, because they're designed to be that way, but hopefully still capture some bit of truth and beauty.
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