Joy? Not so much – but God does make me smile

Posted on January 23, 2016 by Trinity Seasons

12 You have turned my wailing into dancing; *
you have put off my sack-cloth and clothed me with joy.

13 Therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing; *
O Lord my God, I will give you thanks for ever. (Psalm 30)

I knew I was unsettled this morning as I opened up my bible to the readings assigned for today. The dreams of my restless night’s sleep seemed to hang over and around me – a sort of dark cloud feeling.  Instead of going right to the readings, I chose to busy myself with some household chores hopeful that routine might erase the musings of my subconscious.

When I finally sat down to be with God’s word my mood – feeling – whatever you want to call it – wasn’t much changed.  My heart and head felt heavy and burdened by the images of the previous night’s sleep.

I opened my bible to the first psalm and at verse 7 I know I’m in trouble – not going to get the peace I am looking for.  I feel sort of slapped in the face, actually.  I’m already down, why put this Word before me?  Ugh.

I just want to get on with a fun filled Saturday and I am here before God’s word to get me in the right frame of mind.  All I’m looking for is a way to get a smile on my face.

But this psalm – this pause – would not have it.  I know where the psalm is going and I don’t want to go there.

I know its petition.  Indeed I have prayed this ‘turning my weeping into joy” psalm, this “thank you for saving me” psalm, this “thanksgiving for ever” psalm on behalf of myself,  my church, of other leaders in God’s church.  I have prayed this psalm for and with my father and for friends and loved ones pushed to the brink of illness and brokenness only to be saved, healed, touched by our Lord, God.

But this morning?  I wasn’t feeling it.  I knew I was pushing back.  My ego, flesh, self was pushing back.  It wasn’t pretty, “Because you know this not to be your experience, because you know your mourning has not been turned to joy, your faith has not earned you God’s favor, you don’t feel saved from anything; because you know that your experience with God and God’s church has broken you apart, broken your life up; because brokenness is your predominant experience of late, maybe it is time to stop looking, praying, thinking that this saving joy is yours to be had and yet to come. Enough with the promise already.  Give me something, Jesus, to stick around.  To keep at this.  Come Holy Spirit.  What is in this for me?”

I had fallen into the ,’it is all about me, trap’ of the ego.  What’s in it for me?  How could I have landed there this morning?

My first year of seminary I was sitting in the refectory with new classmates. As each introduced themselves I was struck at all the broken lives surrounding me and feeling so out of place.  I had no such brokenness – or so I thought.  No, the landscape of my life up to this point was verdant, open, joyful, full, loving, blessing-filled. I listened to the stories of my colleagues and could hear myself praying a prayer of thanksgiving to God along the lines of the Pharisee in the temple thanking God for not making him like the taxpayer praying next to him – the parable Jesus teaches in Luke 18:

10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

Really, truly.  This was going through my head on one of my first days as a seminarian to become a priest in God’s church.

Verse 7 of today’s psalm took me back to that day.  I realized I had entered the prospect of ministry in God’s church with this level of self-righteousness and confidence.

7 While I felt secure, I said,
“I shall never be disturbed. *
You, Lord, with your favor, made me as strong as
the mountains.”

And then, well, it all went to hell in a hand basket as they say.  All the brokenness and pain and mourning I had heard existed rained down, torrentially at times, on me and many loved ones around me.

I have yet to find my way back to that place of security, confidence, settledness, and self-righteousness – that place at the table with all the broken folks but me.  Thank, God.

At the same time, I haven’t experienced this saving joy that Psalm 30 keeps putting before me – sort of slapping me with.  I haven’t found a way to joy.  And I know I am sort of over it – sort of exhausted at the effort to get there, wondering once again why I continue to believe God’s Word will settle me.  So many promises alluded to in scripture seem to have alluded me.

Or have they.  Maybe I am just wrong – again.

Just as I was wrong about my confidence in the Lord and His in me at that table with the “taxpayers” on my first day of seminary, could I be wrong about how I understand the promise of this psalm?

I think I was paused here today to rethink what God is saying to me – beating me over the head with, even – again.  Instead of looking for ways to walk away from His word entirely because it hasn’t ‘worked for me,’ what if.  What if, for today, I just readjust my thinking and read the story in the psalm as a moment – not a lifetime – but a moment in a lifetime.

Maybe saving and joyfulness and thanksgiving are moments in time.  Part of the process – part of a life well lived – seasonal, even.  Like threads in a life’s tapestry – at times full on in your face, at most others hidden in the background.  Like clouds –  at times bright and light, and at other moments dark and pregnant with rain.

Clouds of WitnessesWhat if  I thought about saving MOMENTS, joyful MOMENTS, loving MOMENTS.  Could I get to saving joy this way? Would recalling times I knew the Lord had saved me from peril, did protect me, had turned my weeping of the night to a morning of joy, would recalling such moments provide a more real picture of things as they are, and not how I feel or perceive them to be?

Yes.  And no. Sort of.  Kind of.

smile thanksNot a full on saving joy experience, but a smile.  A smile came to my face recalling the saving moments.  I’ve had many in my life.  I have been saved – and blessed.

Looking up from the Word today and pausing here for such a long moment to recall the moments of grace in my life – well – I have nothing but thanksgiving in my head and heart. I know this was a God moment.

Thank-you, God.  Thank you, thank you.

Now, on to my fun Saturday.

Praise Him.

Daily Office Saturday Readings: AM Psalm 30, 32; PM Psalm 42, 43
Gen. 12:9-13:1; Heb. 7:18-28; John 4:27-42

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“Born-again” and small thinking in the loving hands of a very, very big God

Posted on January 19, 2016 by Trinity Seasons

The Holy Spirit paused me at so many points along the way in today’s readings.  With each, I reflected out-loud in my scriptural journal, marveling at the questions and challenges put before me by God’s word.

My first stop was the second psalm wherein I was asked to think differently about the good-bad petitions of many Old Testament believers.  I frequently push back big-time against the faithful who ask God to do bad things to bad people.  Psalmists and other scribes who pray to God, “What are you going to do about these evildoers?  These bad people who don’t believe in you?  I have an idea, why don’t you take their things away, hurt them, banish them?  If you did that to those bad people, God, then I would feel better about believing in you – that all my trials and poverty and sadness and illness and well you know, all that bad stuff that has happened to me – me a good and righteous believing person – well –  I could go on believing in you and I would just feel better about myself.”

So at this second psalm when this type of petition came up, I was glad to see a softer heart hearing it – reading these verses of Psalm 28:

3 Do not snatch me away with the wicked or with the
evildoers, *
who speak peaceably with their neighbors,
while strife is in their hearts.

4 Repay them according to their deeds, *
and according to the wickedness of their actions.

Big GodI realized this is a good person just trying to make sense of God’s way in the world – a sort of heart’s cry in the meager language of the human mind. The psalmist is working things out in his or her head and heart and letting God know what he or she needs to see to know God’s way for him or her and the world.  The psalmist is the black-white, good-bad thinker – not God. Small thinking for a very big God.

Point is – that for today – I felt some compassion as I perceived the limits of the human mind at work earnestly trying to comprehend our mysterious Creator.  Believing in Him is not a simple endeavor.  Following Him even harder.  Our human minds so often limit access to the holy and mysterious broad place into which we are each called to live with one another.

The broad, light-filled space Jesus points Nicodemus towards in today’s gospel.  I was so grateful to have checked my cynicism at the door in the psalter.  A layer of the onion was peeled so I could read this passage differently – a passage I have often pushed back against over the years – not because of what Jesus teaches, but because of how Christians  – and especially how many Christian pastors – have used the ‘born-again’ teaching to invite non-believers into the fold.  Like the psalmists whom I have derided for their ill-will wishing upon believers, I haven’t held in much esteem those who reduce the Christian life to a sort of one-off born again event.  Be born-again, say these words, and you are forever saved.  Small theological thinking for a very big God.

But, as I said before – the cynicism I sometimes feel when I come upon this passage – didn’t rear its head today.  No, my more compassionate heart read the passage differently and I saw the broad place to which Jesus points Nicodemus and all of us who follow him. Entry way?  The born-again door.  A one-off?  No.  On-going as this Forward Day by Day writer reflected upon in 2011:

John 2:23—3:15. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God [KJV].

Having grown up in a small town in the American South, I was often asked the born-again question. Had I been born again? Many of my schoolmates could tell you the date and time when they had been, and they spoke as if they’d been “lost” until that moment but “saved” ever since. I couldn’t identify with that, and I sometimes wondered whether I was a real Christian.

Years later, I found my answer to the born-again question. It is: “Yes, I’ve been born again. And again, and again, and again.” Every time I’ve thought I was within sight of Christian maturity, God has done something to me, usually something I didn’t expect and often something I wouldn’t have asked for. God has dismantled and reconstructed me and my faith several times, and I can identify the people through whom God has done it. Moreover, I doubt that God’s finished. For all I know, God will continue to work on me in the next life. In fact, I hope so. I wouldn’t care for a life—on earth, in heaven, or anywhere—that’s always the same, with nothing new to learn, no cutting edges, no challenges to face, no new revelations of the goodness of God.

No small thinking God, we have.  But a big ol mysterious, wondrous, perplexing, welcoming God who calls each of us to be born anew every day we are here on His earth – born again, over and over and over – growing up with Him and in Him.

Praise God.

Daily Office Readings, Tuesday: AM Psalm 26, 28; PM Psalm 36, 39
Gen. 9:1-17; Heb. 5:7-14; John 3:16-21

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By jove, by heart – I would if I could

Posted on January 16, 2016 by Trinity Seasons

Hebrews 4:12 Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

In today’s epistle, I was surprised to find this passage – one that I know and take to heart – but not by heart. A scriptural passage that would, if I could know it by heart, roll off my tongue in preaching or on the page as I do theological reflection or in a pastoral visit.  I love this word from God – so encouraging and illustrative of the depth and power of God’s Word.Memorizing-Scripture

But instead of settling with the delightful surprise of coming across Hebrews 4:12-13, I was sadly reminded that I didn’t know this passage by heart.  As much as I love it, I could not have told you it came from Hebrews.  And more.  I am reminded at how poorly I have memory-mastered scriptural passages and verses for use in ministry and in life.

I am wondering about the facility and capacity to memorize scripture and what roll that plays in one’s faith formation.  I know that I was not exposed to explicit bible memorization as part of my Christian formation – at least in the early years. The Ten Commandments, yes, but truly not much else.  Youth Group bible studies would come later – but in my early and formative years, the practice of bible-verse memorization was not introduced.

And yet, I was learning the big ideas in God’s Word – the intentions of the heart, as the letter to the Hebrews describes – in worship.  And without being aware of it, I was even memorizing discrete, explicit, scriptural passages for the the liturgy in the tradition in which I was raised was infused with scripture.  Approximately 70% of the Book of Common Prayer comes directly from the Bible, and Episcopalians read more Holy Scripture in Sunday worship than almost any other denomination in Christianity.

It took me a long time to realize how much of the bible I had learned.  I had considered myself a biblical illiterate when I first entered seminary years ago.  I was looking forward to some serious bible study where I would memorize God’s Word and expand and deepen my big-picture understanding of God’s revelation in scripture.   A God is in the details sort of thing – wherein bible verse memorization would facilitate comprehension so that I would be better at not only connecting dots in God’s Word, but also connecting culture dots to God’s Word.  Memorization and context.

But memorization did not come easily. Context, yes.  Indeed, that’s a big part of what this blog is all about, at least for me – context for God’s Word to be able to hear what the Spirit is saying. Today. To me. To God’s people.

That memorization was difficult for me has been a surprise.  I spent many years in my youth and in my young adulthood and even in my professional life for a season memorizing lines.  As an actor and public speaker I never found memorization a challenge.  Nor later in life when I learned a third foreign language to speak, or learning Ancient Greek. Mastering conversational Italian and written Greek was not without challenges, but memorization of vocabulary and sentence structure and the like wasn’t a problem.

Perhaps that had something to do with how I memorized lines, a script, a speech, a colloquialism. The method to the madness, so to speak. I know in all of those learnings, I had to combine audio with text.  I had to SEE the words I was learning.  So with a script, I memorized by seeing all the lines on a page – mine and the other actors.  And when I was rehearsing or performing and needed to recall a line, I would visualize the page.  I could see the line – highlighted often in yellow – and then I would recall the line on stage.  Same thing at work when learning Greek.  In addition to flash cards, seeing the word in the text – in John’s gospel for example (the easiest most elementary Greek of the bible) – was my way forward recalling the Greek word.

I do a lot of audio book listening.  And podcast listening.  If I want to master an idea, commit something to memory, I have to purchase or locate online the written transcript or book.  I have to SEE the words I have heard in order to commit the idea to memory.  I have to place the idea in conTEXT.

So, why not scripture?  Why haven’t I been able to memorize scripture so that I can call upon a verse or letter or passage at just the right moment?

I am not quite sure.  I think I am wondering more about those who have memorized the bible hook line and sinker and how they use scriptural passages – word for word from whatever version of the bible they prefer – to make a case for this or that.  Those folks lose me after awhile.  The recitation isn’t enough to make a case.  God’s Word needs to be unpacked, heard in conTEXT.  And all of it needs to be heard, preached, read – and often.

Even so.  I would if I could.  I would cite scripture right now to make a case for bible-memorizationally-challenged ministers to continue speaking to, about, for God’s Word.

Best I can do today is cite the letter to the Hebrews (which, by the way, was most likely not penned by Paul – how’s that for conTEXT :-)) to encourage and remind all of us that God’s word is living and active – not static, not to be reduced to a flash card for memorization.  But to be lived.  As seen in Hebrews 4:12:

…the word of God is living and active

Praise Him.

Year Two Daily Office: Saturday Lectionary Readings: AM Psalm 20, 21:1-7(8-14); PM Psalm 110:1-5(6-7), 116, 117
Gen. 6:9-22; Heb. 4:1-13; John 2:13-22

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Hope, not expectation

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Trinity Seasons

John 7:40 When they heard these words, some in the crowd said, ‘This is really the prophet.’ 41Others said, ‘This is the Messiah.’* But some asked, ‘Surely the Messiah* does not come from Galilee, does he? 42Has not the scripture said that the Messiah* is descended from David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?’ 43So there was a division in the crowd because of him. 44Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

The gospel reading is about a LOT of things this morning, but where I have lifted my eyes is at the recognition how judgment can be so wrong when born of expectation and not experience where the Holy Spirit animates.  Expectation is so very different than Hope.Hope, not expectation

The chief priests and Pharisees are distracted and obsessed and blinded by expectations of what the messiah looks like, who he should be, what he should say, even from whence he was to come – as the Mandy Hale quote suggests, denying them the pure joy of knowing Jesus as the son of God!  As if they would know the messiah by a resume, complete with head shot.

Some of the greatest success stories in the business and political world – at least in our culture – have emerged out of a crowd of contenders with the most unlikely resume, from the most unexpected places and with nary the right look.

Despite their experience with Jesus – the love witnessed, the healings seen, the truth proclaimed –  their expectation is far too powerful to change their world view, their ego, their investment in the rightness of their thinking.  The hoped for messiah was to look, act, be one way and one way only – blinded they were by such expectations.

Expectations are born of the mind, not the spirit, crafted by what Paul calls, the flesh, and what I think of as our ego.  Expectations of ourselves – what we should be, what kind of life we think we are entitled to, how we are to be known – these are all musings of our ego.

Expectations about relationships, situations, institutions fall on the rational side of a relational equation, in my book, and set a person or a group or an institution up for disappointment and failure. Failure to live into the life and person we are called to live and be, in Christ.

The gospel has me thinking about all the expectations I have crafted over the years with regard to self and to God’s church – and – how my experience in life of self and church has so often been counter-intuitive to those crafted expectations.

Further it has me thinking about how I have judged wrongly when the expectation was inevitably unmet – judged the other, blamed the other, seen the speck in the eye of the other – person or institution – if the expectation was born of my own selfishness.

Being aware of what role my own way of thinking plays in the way I understand self and church is a constant thought bubble of mine.  I work hard at not presuming a point-of-view, sometimes to a point of being paralyzed, unable to move one way or the other – trying to excise all of my own thought-ego so I can hear what the spirit is saying – what Jesus would have me think, do, be.

Perhaps I have set myself up in some way for failure, because in ‘working hard’ at not letting my own thinking determine a path, a way of being, of loving –  I have come to rely upon – to expect? – the Holy Spirit to be clear – perfectly clear – with me.

Hmm.  Paradox, once again.  I begin a reflection on the gospel that I think illuminates the danger in expectations born of self (flesh, ego) and I end with the realization I have built into this reflective faith discipline the expectation that the Holy Spirit will speak to me and show me the way once and for all.

Now that I didn’t expect.

Praise Him.

Friday Lectionary Readings: AM Psalm 117, 118; PM Psalm 112, 113
Exod. 17:1-7; Col. 1:15-23; John 7:37-52

 

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Praying forward my way forward

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Trinity Seasons

I greeted this new day with resolutions on my mind having preached yesterday about the coming Feast of the Epiphany and how we might take some time in these last days of Christmas to get in touch with how we stay in touch with the reality of the incarnation, in us and in the world, resolving once and for all to increase our face-time with Jesus.

How to, resolve.  Buzz words of every new year, it seems.

The coming of Epiphany links up nicely with the cultural tradition of turning over a new leaf, making resolutions for better living in the coming year.  Well…kinda, sorta, not really.

New Year’s resolutions are of the can-do, mind over matter, will-power type.  And epiphanies? An epiphany we commonly think of as aha moments – an insight that changes one’s understanding of something. But epiphanies have a power in themselves to transform, ushering in not only a new way of thinking about something but also a new way of being.

This kind of behavior change is not likely to occur and certainly won’t stick by mind-over-matter thinking.

I love Dan Piraro’s take on resolutions which illustrates – at least to me – through word play on RESOLUTION the futility of living into some will-powered change of behavior and life.

2180_Bizarro_123112Resolutions_original

My sentiment, exactly.  Will-power and thinking we can think our way to behavior change just does not work.  Note this other illustration found on Google images that says the same thing. new-year-resolutions-12-30

Year after year, the same resolutions taken on, amended, with every intention of making it work THIS time, THIS year. Blah, blah, blah.

I’m pretty guilty of this flawed thinking, myself.  As recent as yesterday after preaching I had resolved to do XYZ (fill in the blank) this year – literally setting my mind to it, no matter what I told myself as I left church.

How quickly – how easily – I forget to look to God first for such resolutions.  For the epiphany – the way forward. To pray forward.

It didn’t take long for the Holy Spirit to reach me, pausing me just where I could hear what I needed to hear about my so-called resolutions.  It was in the first reading this morning, at these verses from Psalm 85:

4 Restore us then, O God our Savior; *
let your anger depart from us.

5 Will you be displeased with us for ever? *
will you prolong your anger from age to age?

6 Will you not give us life again, *
that your people may rejoice in you?

There is no life – resolved to do xyz or otherwise – no life if anger resides anywhere in or around. Anger held onto, attached, woven into the fabric of relationships with God, family, friends, colleagues, foes, environments, or circumstances eats away at those relationships with God, family, friends, colleagues, foes, environments or circumstances

Prolonged anger can so easily become a way of being.  Of living.

But it is a lie.  No one lives – has life – when anger has not departed.

So.  God stepped in this morning to revise my list – to get it aligned with His will and way.

I am praying forward for a season – a life – to excommunicate anger from my way of being. I have no idea how to do this on my own – thank God, I am not on my own.

Come, Holy Spirit, come.

Praise Him.

Lectionary Readings Monday, January 4: AM Psalm 85, 87; PM Psalm 89:1-29
Joshua 3:14—4:7; Eph. 5:1-20; John 9:1-12,35-38

 

 

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O Lord God, I hear you calling! Away, you rolling river! Yes, far away I hear you calling

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Trinity Seasons
(Please click arrow to play so you can share with me the real sense of God calling us, letting us know we are prayed for in love and faithfulness)

A joyful longing to see a loved one or loved place. That is what I hear every time this instrumental version of the beloved American folk song, O Shenandoah, comes up on my Pandora station or ipod audio shuffle.  And this morning it popped up – providentially, I am sure –  as I was paused on this couplet from the morning’s first psalm,

7 Let him sit enthroned before God for ever; *
bid love and faithfulness watch over him.

What a lovely petition – that someone we know or even ourselves may be watched over by love and faithfulness.   A guardian angel – someone watching over us.  Bidding we be watched over. Lovely.

This is another way of saying, that all be well with their souls, their hearts, our souls, our hearts. A joyful longing for their days to be guided by love and faithfulness.  The ‘rolling river’ of God’s love and faithfulness  – far away, but coming.  We wait this Advent for his coming.

That’s what I hear in the little couplet.  Perhaps prompted in part by our remembrance this past Sunday of Mary’s hymn – the Magnificat that responds to the good news brought to Mary by an angel,

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for He has looked with favor on His lowly servant.

At the couplet of Psalm 61, I paused to think of such guardian angels in my life – those who have watched over me, who I know truly care for my well-being.  One sent me just last week a Christmas decoration to remind me of my presence in her prayers – an angel harkening the good news.  I placed her on my mantle, above the fireplace – above the fire. A joyful longing is what I hear out of her little trumpet, that this year I and all who gather with me this coming Christmas day will be well – that our spirits will rejoice in God, our savior, and we will know that He has looked on each of us with favor.

That’s what guardian angels do – they harken the good news to us – stir in us a joyful longing for our well-being.  Perched above the fire – or mess of our life – praying for love and faithfulness to infuse and guide us.

A joyful longing for well-being, for love, for health.

May you pause today to recall the angels in your life who have brought you the good news – who have hovered above what you think of the mess of your life to bid you love and faithfulness, a joyful longing for you to be well.

Praise Him.

Daily Lectionary Readings: AM Psalm 61, 62; PM Psalm 112, 115
Zeph. 3:14-20; Titus 1:1-16; Luke 1:1-25

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The word that the Lord of hosts has sent by His Spirit? Rejoice! Celebrate Jesus’ BIRTH-day

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Trinity Seasons

Zecharaiah 7:8-8:8But they refused to listen, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears in order not to hear. 12They made their hearts adamant in order not to hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets.

Yesterday I was with two of my dearest friends. We have grown up together and shared every season of life together – childhood, high school, college, marriages, motherhood, and now for both of them, grand-motherhood.  One was describing how she was introducing to her oldest granddaughter, Sally – only 3 – JESUS and his upcoming birthday into the mix of all the Santa Claus Christmas messages surrounding her.

Sally is being raised like many – most? – by non-church-going parents.  Believers they might be, but with some serious doubts.  Yet they know enough to ‘allow’ my grandmother friend to speak faith into their daughter’s life and I suspect even delight that their daughter has a voice raising her with the knowledge and love of God, our Father.

So, one of the stories she has been telling her little granddaughter is a simple one.  It is about a baby’s birth in the world, that his name is Jesus, and that we celebrate his BIRTH day every year on what she has come to know as Christmas.  And that Jesus, who’s birth we celebrate, was a gift to the world from God, His father.  That this is a season to rejoice at the birth of this one named Jesus and that Santa Claus, with the power of the Holy Spirit, rejoices with us – helps us rejoice at Jesus’ birth.

Santa with Birthday HatIn her home, she has decorations that convey this simple message to her granddaughter – that blend some of the secular images of our day with the truth of the season.  Here to the right, for example, is Santa with his birthday hat on (advent wreath) celebrating Jesus’ birth day, and the one below is Santa with the Holy Spirit guiding him FullSizeRender-1in this season of rejoicing.

The story continues.

The little one was out one day with her grandmother, my friend.  And she noticed on a window a manger scene sticker and excitedly pointed it out to her grandmom, “Look, baby Jesus!  They are celebrating his birthday!”

What struck me when I heard the story is how rare it is in our world that the store front would even have such a sticker. We live on the secularized West Coast where a local cities are receiving legal complaints that City Halls are lighted in ‘religious’ colors – green and red. Not even!  Where Holiday lighting ceremonies are big deals and well attended as kick offs to the ‘holiday’ shopping season.  Where “Christmas” is being extracted from the listing of “Carols” in favor of “Seasonal Songs.”  Don’t get me started.

But this describes the tone out here, very close to the tone in Israel to which Zechariah refers today – ‘their hearts adamant in order not to hear‘ – of this HOLIDAY – not CHRISTMAS season.

So, that is why the manger scene sticker on the window of a retail establishment was such a surprise – -there are fewer and fewer visual or audio reminders in the public arena that point to Jesus – to the reason for the season.  I commented to my friend how rarely any of us hear, Merry Christmas, any more but for our worship communities. Their hearts adamant in order not to hear.

That God’s little one would glimpse the manger scene and give a shout out to Jesus – well that was a moment of grace.  Had my friend not shared the real story of Christmas – albeit the beginnings and a simple one – she would have likely walked right past the little manger scene where Jesus’ birthday was being celebrated – and straight towards Santa’s chair for a chance to let him know what she wanted for Christmas.

That’s what many grandparents are doing with their grandkids in my neck of the woods – taking them to see ‘Santa,’ to ice skate, to see the pretty lights, to chop down a holiday tree, to make seasonal sweets, taking family photos and writing an essay about their lives to share as a holiday greeting to friends.  A people adamant not to acknowledge the reason for the season.

Dan Piraro once again illuminates in his Bizarro strip the rub – the disconnect that has landed in a world and culture adamant not to hear ‘the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his spirit,” that Jesus Christ is born!  

Christmas

Would that all the children of the secular world have a voice like my friend.  May the Holy Spirit guide each of us to be that voice to someone this Advent Season.

Praise Him.

Daily Lectionary Readings:

Psalm 40, 54; PM Psalm 51
Zech. 7:8-8:8; Rev. 5:6-14; Matt. 25:14-30

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No room for self-righteousness at the inn

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Trinity Seasons

Praise of thanksgiving.  That’s it.  The bombastic insults you are hurling at my people, especially your people – your family – that will not do.

This is what I heard the Spirit saying to God’s people in the words of Psalm 50 , appointed this morning:

20 You are always speaking evil of your brother *
and slandering your own mother’s son.

21 These things you have done, and I kept still, *
and you thought that I am like you.”

22 “I have made my accusation; *
I have put my case in order before your eyes.

23 Consider this well, you who forget God, *
lest I rend you and there be none to deliver you.

24 Whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me; *
but to those who keep in my way will I show the salvation of God.”

I paused specifically, as I often do, at  this couplet:

20 You are always speaking evil of your brother *
and slandering your own mother’s son.

It cuts to the quick – doesn’t require a lot of unpacking for anyone, wondering what God was suggesting.  Speaking truth – getting to the heart of a matter that every one of us can understand.  Relationship.  Human relationship. That is where believers are called to live into and out their lives, rightly.

And if you know that you are someone who has slandered, insulted, spoken evil of  ‘your brother or your mother’s son’  – these words just cut right to the heart of the matter. Christians  are to see Christ in others – to love one another as we are loved. Not to be in relationship with others – and especially our families – with an eye and heart towards judgement, and self-righteous proclamation that asserts they are lesser because they don’t do xyz, and do things of which don’t approve.    bizarro-cartoon -you can't insult your way

Just as Bizarro’s comic illustrates, in my mind’s eye – a believer, yes, but you are being a jerk about it?

Self-righteousness just doesn’t play very well in God’s kingdom.

What else the couplet – You are always speaking evil of your brother and slandering your own mother’s son – brought to mind this morning was the recent political debate, where the ‘family’ of contenders for the Republican nomination for President were gathered once again to debate – discuss? – issues of import to the country.  And one of the siblings in that pack called the other out – without insult – speaking truth to power (albeit temporal power as a front-runner), I think – just as the psalmist did lo those many years ago.

“You can’t insult your way to the presidency.”

Now there was a statement that required no unpacking – no wondering what was intended in the meaning.  You heard the statement and whether or not you preferred the bombastic front runner over his fellow candidate, you couldn’t have disagreed.

You can’t insult your way to the presidency any more than you can speak evil of your brother and insult your way to heaven.  There’s just no room for self-righteousness in God’s kingdom.

I hope the same is true in the political arena.

Praise Him.

Daily Lectionary: AM Psalm 50; PM Psalm [59, 60] or 33
Zech. 4:1-14; Rev. 4:9-5:5; Matt. 25:1-13

 

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Let go, let God – the one and only contractor we need

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Trinity Seasons

Bizarro-05-11-08-ContractorWEB

Do you hire contractors to do the work God has offered to do for you?  How’s that going? Perhaps the landscape of your life looks a bit like this?  Scattered bits of this and that, unconnected and unfinished, untouched, and unpacked?

The pause that came to me in today’s readings – and bringing this comic by Dan Piraro to mind – was early and in the psalm.  If you read this blog with any frequency you know that the Holy Spirit pauses me frequently at the morning’s psalm sometimes having me linger there before I get on to the remaining three passages.

So it was this morning with Psalm 37 – a psalm I have reflected upon often – a psalm from which one verse has been given to me by friends, spiritual advisors, colleagues, therapists and prayer partners to encourage me in a time of trial.

4 Take delight in the Lord, *
and he shall give you your heart’s desire.

Many of my reflections on Psalm 37  have focused on  distinguishing ‘my heart’s desire’ with respect to vocation from God’s desire – God’s will be done.  Indeed, whenever I received this verse from someone, it was to encourage me to stay the course – that as long as I was committed to the Lord’s way, trusted the Lord, my heart’s desire would be forthcoming.

But it wasn’t this verse that stopped me today.

It was here, just the next verse, where my eyes lifted:

5 Commit your way to the Lord and put your trust in him, *and he will bring it to pass.

And truth is, it was only the first part of the verse that touched me, made me smile, pause, and receive the blessing of an encouraging word.

Encouraging in part because I realized the Holy Spirit had allowed me to skip over the ‘heart’s desire’ promise for the first time in a very, very long time. I realize I’m over it – past it – ‘my heart’s desire’ is not what I am in charge of figuring out or piecing together, it is not a DIY project.  And I am not committed to the Lord so that He will bring me my heart’s desire, but His for me.

It was a second bit of encouragement I’ve received in the past 24 hours.  Love the way the Spirit works.

Just yesterday after sharing my story related to vocation with a colleague – a colleague who is encouraging me to stay the course despite all the stops, starts and detours – he asked, “What a mess! How are you keeping this altogether?  What is it you are doing in this season of trial to not lose it?”

I answered, “I’m not sure I haven’t lost it on more than one occasion, and yes a mess, but one I believe I was lead into by God’s hand.  And frankly, it is the day to day discipline of dwelling in God’s word.”  Simple, but real.  It is my testimony, I suppose – that the place I know saving grace is in dwelling in God’s word and in worshiping with God’s people.  The daily discipline of grounding a day and even an hour in scripture, in God’s story, followed up with a weekly discipline of worship, has kept me from obsessing over my own story making futile attempts to assemble all the scattered pieces into a life that looks like my heart’s desire.

I know I have been committed to God’s way and I know I trust the Lord to lead me through the life He has created in me and for me.

I think the question my friend posed to me yesterday ‘how are you coping in this chaos, these set backs, disappointments, rejections, this mess?’ set me up to receive the blessing of the God’s word this morning – to be paused at the one verse that could affirm me and my journey – the one verse that would remind me that I have been committed to the Lord, that I have trusted, Him and His way.

I decided a long time ago to let Jesus take the wheel, to not hire out the job of constructing the life the Holy Spirit would have me live.

Letting go and letting God is another way of expressing the same idea. Doing so doesn’t ensure smooth sailing.  Indeed, I believe I was lead into the mess of the life I was describing to my friend just so God could put me back together again – His way.

My life’s landscape has looked a lot like the Bizarro panel I inserted at the top of this post. And for a time, while in the midst of the mess I walked into, I sub-contracted – hired out in a sense for someone else to make sense of ‘my heart’s desire’ as a way out of the mess.  I sought affirmation from others and was devastated when it didn’t come my way.  And I was stuck in the mess for a long time just trying to discern ‘my heart’s desire’ – what was it?  did I know? was this God’s will or mine? did others agree or disagree?

Mid-way through I was moved to move off that dime – by God’s grace – and prompted to focus simply and beautifully on God’s story, God’s heart.  For me, for you, for all of God’s people.

I let go again and returned the reins to the Lord, let God, trusted God.  And there I have remained ever since.  Dwelling in God’s word, worshiping in God’s church.  Walking with God’s people. And trusting.  Trusting Him all the way along.

That’s how I’ve coped, friend.  Dwelling in God’s story. Letting God do the work He has intended to do, so that I may do God’s work as He intends.

Praise Him.

Daily Lectionary:

AM Psalm 37:1-18; PM Psalm 37:19-42
Amos 9:1-10; Rev. 2:8-17; Matt. 23:13-26

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Rhyme and Reason for the Season

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Trinity Seasons

Headed into this second week of Advent I was disappointed to see that the New Testament readings were going to join the past week’s Old Testament readings in the prophetic theme of final judgment, the last days, doom, gloom, the rapture.

Disappointed because all last week as we made our way through Amos’ book warning the people of Israel, and specifically the Northern Kingdom, that God would have no more of their nonsense, their disobedience, indulgences, moral lapses, cross-pollinating and warning them of the judgement to come, who would be in, who would be out, and how this judgment would come down on God’s people, well, I found myself wanting to skip past the anxiety-filled prognostication to get to the good stuff of Advent.  The cozy, comforting, anticipation of Emmanuel – God with us – coming our way.

The Advent seasonal prompts around me pointing to the coming of the Lord are not anxious, but soothing, reassuring, inviting, grounding. Warm lights on a silver-tip pine tree in my home, pleasant smells of fresh greens, berries, cinnamon, baked goods that conjure safe havens, childhoods, love,  and melodic hymns sung at worship and heard in nearly every venue I enter reminding me of a sweet baby in a manger and the ‘reason for the season.’  This road to Jesus – this Advent, my Advent – is not littered with the locusts, the plagues, the wailing of which both Amos and John’s revelation insist upon reminding.

Like this morning’s passage from Revelation 1:1-8 that effortlessly joined Amos’ bandwagon of warning and putting before me, again, the image of the last days instead of that first day in a sweet manger,

To him who loves us and freed* us from our sins by his blood, 6and made* us to be a kingdom, priests serving* his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
7 Look! He is coming with the clouds;
every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him;
and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
So it is to be. Amen.

Together with Amos, God’s Word is reading more like a shout out for the the coming of the end ushered in by the Lord, than a coming of the Lord, Emmanuel, to live and breathe and be with and in us.

And yet. Lest I forget, this is God’s Word.  There’s a reason for these readings to be here in this Advent season.   A rhyme and reason, a method to the madness.  Call it what you will, but the foretelling of the final judgment – Jesus’ second coming –  is as much a part of the ‘reason for the season’ as his birth.  It is the already, but not yet tension embodied in Advent.

I have been watching the HBO series, The Leftovers. The final episode of the second season aired last night. 

For those not familiar with the series, here’s an editorial review recap of the original book:

The Leftovers explores what would happen if The Rapture actually took place and millions of people just disappeared from the earth. How would normal people respond? (The) characters show a variety of coping techniques, including indifference, avoidance, depression, freaking out, and the joining of cults…(the story) takes a bizarre and abnormal event–the Rapture–and imagines how normal people would deal with being left behind.  Chris Schluep, The Leftovers

Thing is, the book and the subsequent HBO series is not explicitly about ‘The Rapture’, but about an unnamed, unexplainable, sudden departure of roughly 2% of the world’s population.

Chaos. A seemingly random, cataclysmic, apocalyptic type event. The HBO series explores how the survivors – the leftovers – seek explanations, seek meaning, try to connect dots in order to move forward and go on living.

Christian rapture? Well, maybe. Except that both the departed and those who are left appear to be random occurences. No rhyme or reason for who left, who stayed. No method to the madness.  So, nothing about the Christian understanding of rapture where only the righteous are reunited with God in heaven, only the believers are ‘taken’ up to be with angels and archangels – nothing about that explanation can explain what takes place in the world of The Leftovers.

The departed in that world appears to be random. No explanation.

Randomness is such an unsettling idea when relied upon to explain violence, chaos, natural disasters, death, though it can assuage a fear that there is some intention behind such tragedy. Randomness as an explanation can also ease the mind of those who would rather not consider a creator – an intention – in life as we know it.

People of faith invest no such confidence in randomness, take no such umbrage or comfort in assigning the good, the bad, the ugly to randomness.  Nothing is random. From the stars in the universe to cells in our DNA, to the movement of energy and light through dark matter, from macro to micro, nothing is random.  All can be explained.

The Dan Piraro comic Bizarro illustrated my thoughts, exactly, in a panel this past week.

Rhyme, no reason

Rhyme, no reason

The Fall – God’s creation, humanity (in this case Humpty Dumpty – the fact that he’s an egg is of no small significance to me – it is how life begins) has fallen, and there’s a rhyme – God’s WORD – available to the survivors – the leftovers.

But to those survivors and witnesses, to those trying to make sense of the Fall, the chaos, the brokenness in the world, to the theologians, skeptics, guilty remnant – well, to them no reason, no explanation for the Fall.

No reason for the season.

Except that there is.

Because there isn’t an observable explanation doesn’t mean there isn’t one, rational or otherwise. And if an explanation, then no randomness allowed.  The sudden departure, Humpty’s fall if you will – is not a random event.

The explanation is revealed in the rhyme.  The Kings horses, the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty back together again because.

That’s what the author of the book, The Leftovers, concluded about God’s roll in the cataclysmic event that takes place in his novel.  Because.  It’s what he read in the (rhyme) biblical stories of Job, Amos, and even Revelation.  Sudden unexplainable seemingly random events happen because God allows, maybe even occasionally causes.

Because God is God.

Advent?  Both and.  Rhyme and reason – all revealed in God’s Word.

Praise Him.

Daily Lectionary:

AM Psalm 25; PM Psalm 9, 15
Amos 7:1-9; Rev. 1:1-8; Matt. 22:23-33

 

 

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