Invoke the name of the Lord? No ‘buts’ about it…

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Trinity Seasons

Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel,and who came forth from the loins* of Judah; who swear by the name of the Lord, and invoke the God of Israel, but not in truth or right. 2 For they call themselves after the holy city,and lean on the God of Israel; the Lord of hosts is his name.  Isaiah 48:1-11

This blog is a place where I wonder with you about what the Holy Spirit is saying to God’s people today by way of God’s Word as laid out in the Daily Common Lectionary.  I come to this space when my private time with God’s Word suggests some question about whether I am hearing God, in truth or right. 

practice what you postIt is in community – in dialogue and fellowship with each other – where I think God intends for us to unpack, question, and wonder and discern His Word.  Context  – where we live, with whom, into what family, place, circumstance we were born – is as important to discerning the daily application of the Word to our lives as it was to those used by God to record His Word, the authors of the different biblical books.

To hear God’s will for us, to hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people here and now – to discern rightly and in truth  – we need need to be aware of our own context and how it can shape our way of hearing – or not.

I do this unpacking – discerning God’s will, voice, hand, presence, absence  – with your help, here on this blog.  And of course, in worship.

Though none may ever comment on posted public reflections or indeed, though no one may read these reflections regularly, the practice of mine to commit to pen and paper my wonderings in a public forum keeps my relationship with God’s Word, real – dare I say, keeps me honest?

I trust that God’s Word is alive – I think of it as our breath, actually – and it speaks to me anew as my context changes – as relationships end, as ministries bear fruit, as family disperses, as loved ones die, as I lose heart, as I make new friends, as I…well…as I make my way day by day in God’s world.  The blog is for me one way for me to practice what I might preach and to live authentically and honestly as I believe, for today.

I humbly – and I do mean humbly –  think of this as a courageous act on my part.  I trust God enough to have my back as I wonder – within community – with others (whether there’s anyone reading or not)  – about what God is saying today.  The exercise then sends me into the day with an open heart to see, hear and feel where the Spirit would have me go, what God would have me do, who God would have me stand with.

God’s Word speaks truth when I engage it in context here and in worship. God’s Word speaks truth always, but I have to allow it to speak to me – have to let it in, have to let it breathe, have to see where it settles in the new place, relationship, or circumstance I am in today that differs not just from the penner of a particular lectionary reading, but, too, from my own yesterday.

With the first verses of Isaiah’s proclamation I was paused.  Hear this!

O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel,and who came forth from the loins* of Judah; who swear by the name of the Lord, and invoke the God of Israel

Who?  Who is to hear this? The folks to whom Isaiah was preaching, who were they, really? Who are they now?

The choir?  Possibly.  A case could be made that those ‘who swear by the name of the Lord,‘ could be comprehended in a contemporary Christian context as today’s choir.  Folks who’s participation in a church choir  – or for that matter, anyone who participates regularly in local church worship as a leader (priest, reader, deacon, acolyte, etc) confers upon them a religious identity that may – or may not – be lived authentically.

Like the house of Jacob who from all outside appearances looks to be people of the One, Holy and Living God, but…

Stop.  Full stop.  BUT.  Scary word, ‘but’.  Discounts all that comes before.

…, but not in truth or right

Like the house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel and who came forth from the loins of Judah, are many folks in our families, churches, communities who self-identify as Christians, who don’t reject their baptisms, but

…but who God knows to be distanced from Him,

…but who God knows is out of relationship,

…but who God knows trusts not God,

…but who God knows attributes blessings and setbacks to his or her own doing,

…but who God knows is not authentically connected to His Word and will.

How could one who ‘invokes the name of the Lord,’  one who is born into the faith of the One, Holy and Living God, one who may even sing of it in worship or preach it from the pulpit, not dwell in truth and right?

Who is in control of the life of those who invoke the name of the Lord, but…? To whom are they accountable? Who has agency in their lives? How does what they say they believe about God manifest in life lived?

I wonder.  That’s all I have room for in my head and heart today.  To just wonder because I find myself surrounded by so many who invoke the name of the Lord, God, but…

Practicing what I am posting, I sign off with praise, to the Lord, God. Thanks to Him, I am able to wonder at all.

 

 

 

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Sitting on the job and inside voices

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Trinity Seasons

53Then each of them went home, 81 while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. (John 7:53-8:11)

When you think of Jesus teaching, where do you place him? On the mountaintop looking down at vast crowds? Moving along the road at a quick pace with disciples and others trying to keep up? jesus teaching walkingOn the back of the ass entering Jerusalem? In the temple at the pulpit? How often do you think of Jesus sitting?

He sits. A lot. In the temple. jesus-teaching-in-the-temple1On the hilltop. Under trees. At the table. In homes. Even at wedding parties.

jesus-teaches-the-twelve_1128355_inlWhen Jesus walked among us, taught us, lived among us, he sat amongst us. And not on a throne. Or in a pulpit. Or on a stage.

No. Jesus doesn’t separate himself out of the crowd to teach the crowd. He doesn’t set the stage for whatever he is going to say, teach, do. He doesn’t manipulate the situation for more or less drama.  He teaches amongst and to and with. And he sits down.

It seems to me that some of Jesus’ most profound ‘teaching’ moments are found in these paused times where Jesus sits. Where I imagine him to be using what mother’s understand as his ‘inside voice.’ These pauses that relate to particular situations – dilemmas for the faithful regarding righteousness, questions of ethics, power and politics, religion, law – in which the words that come from Jesus speak for themselves. The message – not the messenger – is revealed and lands in the hearer hard and deeply. The message pierces the heart, truth pierces in order to be made known. The word is allowed to travel to each heart within ear-shot, like the ripples of a stone skimming along the water – outward from the source.  Jesus, the source, the messenger, sits out of the way of the message.

Whether he is teaching just one or the crowds, as he does so in today’s gospel story from the Daily Office Lectionary.

The adulteress woman and the teaching that comes from the story – we are all sinners, lest you forget – is such a powerful one that it seems trite to zero in on Jesus’ position – whether he is standing, sitting, projecting or speaking in his inside voice – as an entry into what the Holy Spirit might be revealing to God’s people this day.

But pause I did and was able to access, thus, the humble, quiet teaching moment that I imagine looked a lot like this photo depicts – Jesus sitting, teaching, while the scribes and Pharisees look down upon him. JesusWritesInSand_705x529

Such a different posture and subtlety than so many present day gospel ‘teachers.’  This pause brought to mind the messengers of our time. Those we find in our worshiping communities who proclaim and teach the good news of Jesus Christ with and in us.

And as my mind’s eye peruses the landscape of those who teach and preach in today’s worshiping communities, I am nearly blinded by all the lights, cameras, bells and whistles that I see surrounding these messengers. All of whom are not just standing but also parading on a stage with the words they are teaching illuminated behind them on larger than life screens. Looking down on us, surely blinded by stage lights to really even see those to whom they preach at, teach at. And speaking their inside voice into a sophisticated amplifier discretely attached to their hip looking shirt or dress for it to be heard in the far reaches of the stadium seats.

Harsh?

Perhaps. I’m on the edgy side these days as I consider ministry in God’s church and how God’s realm is being proclaimed – most especially in Sunday worship.  And today’s gospel just touched a nerve I guess. God’s people can learn so much from Jesus in his quiet ways and moments.Transforming truths come from him while he sits.  When he uses his inside voice.

But today it seems as if Jesus’ teaching moments are being turned into feel good identity badges that do nothing to transform the life of the hearer because they have been packaged for the consumer.  Hmm.

I don’t find many inside voices in worship anymore.  Rather many more loud, staged, overly dramatic orators speaking at and down to God’s people.

What has God’s church lost in translation?  And where have all the quite moments gone?

Sigh.  I think I’ll sit on this one.

Praise Him.

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(Praise) Music to my ears

Posted on December 10, 2014 by Trinity Seasons

That’s what the readings ushered in this morning…music to my ears that brought….well, tears. Praise Music on the most authentic, grandest scale. Nothing contrived when God’s Word is put to music and used liturgically, in worship, as a corporate prayer, a response to God’s call.

The reading from Isaiah is pregnant with the combination of God’s Word and (praise)music that can do nothing less than birth praise and glory. In the opening verses you’ll encounter the Sanctus,

‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’

The Sanctus*, an opening hymn sung by the angels in Isaiah’s story, appeared in the very first known liturgy of God’s church and has been a presence ever since and always in the Eucharistic Prayers of The Episcopal Church.

Students Raising HandsBut it was further in the passage where I was paused – first by an image that came to my eyes, then to a hymn. There I saw Isaiah, reaching his hands up – in praise-like fashion – but rather innocently, like like a kindergartner eagerly volunteering to go to the office for the Teacher, Send me, send me…I’ll go!  

Isaiah 6:6-9

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7The seraph* touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’ 8Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’ 9And he said, ‘Go and say to this people:
“Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
keep looking, but do not understand.”

Send me.  Now the image of the eager volunteer fades as the music and words of a hymn percolate bringing my mind to the calmer, more prayerful side of the interpretation of the prophet’s response suggested in the passage. Here Am IA hymn that never fails to move me to tears – whether sitting at my kitchen table alone with God’s word or in a worship service anticipating the partaking of the bread and wine.

“Here I Am Lord” by Don Schutte is sung often in Eucharistic liturgies during Advent and Lent, and frequently at Ordinations.

For today, I am paused here at Isaiah, without going further in the Daily Office Lectionary readings  to rest in the music the Holy Spirit brought to my ears, that ushered in my tears. I am going to rest here with Isaiah’s prophetic words, here I am, and with the musical interpretation of the same from Dan Schutte ((I am also uploading a National Cathedral – in Washington D.C. –  Choral version of Here I Am).

Perhaps you’ll have time to rest, here, too.

Praise God.

here-i-am-lord

*Here is a contemporary setting of the Sanctus I found on YouTube:

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Love you…more

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Trinity Seasons

FR-12x18 PL.SB179 I Love You MoreHas anyone every told you they love you more? Have you ever professed the same to anyone?  I love you more. Some may even complete the expression, waxing poetic – more than the stars in the sky, more than the sun and the moon, more than the depths of the ocean.

But the shorthand version – I love you more –  is pretty powerful on its own, I think. No modifiers needed when expressed with a smile and no expectation of reciprocation. No conditions, attached.

But there’s another kind of, I love you more, expression.  It is the soft-ball pitch that seeks affirmation or reciprocation, seeks denial, even.  No smile accompanies this kind of loving more than statement.  A condition looms in the background of this kind of loving more expression: You love your work more than you love me; Mommy loves the baby more than us; Her quiet time means more to her than anything.

Dan Piraro’s illustration to the right sort of sumsbizarro-tunnel-of-love up what happens to that love expression when it has gone through life. Comes out on the other side looking a little trashed.

The first psalm of today’s Daily Office Lectionary readings asserts God loves Jerusalem more than the land of Jacob. The people of God have gone through a sort of tunnel of love with the Lord, God, and now the psalmist writes:

1 On the holy mount stands the city he founded;
2   the Lord loves the gates of Zion
   more than all the dwellings of Jacob.
3 Glorious things are spoken of you,
   O city of God.

God’s love doesn’t operate this way.  I don’t think there’s any trace of a quantifiable attribute  – more than, less than –  in God’s love.  God is love.  Perfect love.  It is infinite. Timeless. Without boundary. No conditions attached to how we are loved by our Lord, God.

But we humans, though loved more by God, have no capacity to love Him or any other person or created thing of the natural world in the same way. There are conditions to the way we love and the way we feel loved.

The conditions emerge out of our humanity, our particularity – where we were born, to whom, in what age, in what place. Conditional love is not an aspect of God’s love, but an aspect of human love.

I believe we are each given moments, people, experiences, epiphanies – to love as God loves us – unconditionally, perfectly – to be able to grasp the enormity of the truth of God.

As a parent with the birth of my second child, I glimpsed that eternal truth.  As my second baby’s due date neared I found myself more and more anxious about how I would be able to love this yet unborn child as much as my first.  How could I love anything ever again so completely as I had loved my first born?

I had glimpsed the ‘unconditional’ aspect of God’s love when she had been born. I had never know anything like it. My head and heart filled with modifiers as I held my first born, I love you more than the stars in the sky, more than the sun and moon, more than chocolate, more than the depths of the ocean.

But as the psalmist contends, how could God love any people more than those of His Holy Hill, those of Jerusalem? How was I to love my second in the same way and not love my first, more than?

But I was not to wonder, how.  Just as I had not known unconditional love before the birth of my first, I knew not the way love grows – the heart grows.  I was graced with more love to give, not dividing up the limited quantity of love I thought I had. God is love. There’s an infinite supply. To give.

But what about to receive?  How do I know I am, in my limitations, in my humanity, in my flawed, broken self, able to receive love from God – to really know what it feels like to be loved as God loves me – as God loves you? To know I am loved, more.

This is a struggle for many of us. A big one for me. Years ago at the beginning of my faith journey a spiritual director pointed me to Jesus for the answer to the question of loving and being loved.  The kind of love I was seeking – unconditional, all-knowing – was not to be found in another person, but in the Lord, God.  Dive into an intimate relationship with Jesus and loneliness would abate, God’s love would fill, animate, enliven the broken me.

This is certainly the message of the gospel – the good news.

I have struggled my life-long to ‘feel’ God’s love for me in the way I have felt in loving others as God has graced me to do.  As much as I know Jesus loves me – as we teach our children – it has been hard to believe, to really know throughout every cell of my being that I am loved.

I want to feel it – more than anything.  I think this yearning explains, in part, my hearing in music – especially love songs – the Lord, my God. Music – hymns, old school, country, instrumental – music moves me, transcends, connects me with the Holy and helps me feel. And when I imagine the singer singing to the Lord, God, I get a whisper of what it must feel like to be so loved.

More.

Praise God.

Here is one such song, from Van Morrison.

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Wherever You Go

Posted on November 13, 2014 by Trinity Seasons

The title from today’s post comes from Stanton Lanier’s album, Open Spaces.  The track, “Wherever You Go” accompanied my prayer time this morning.  You may listen, here:

Psalm 23

A Psalm of David.
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
2   He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;*
3   he restores my soul.*
He leads me in right paths*
for his name’s sake.

4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley,*

I fear no evil;

for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely* goodness and mercy* shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.*

I prayed the first psalm of the Daily Office Lectionary very slowly this morning somehow sensing that on this day – a day that marks the bidding adieu to the family home as my parents move from one valley to another – on this day the Holy Spirit might send some touch.

But I didn’t begin to pray the psalm with my parents or their move in mind.  I was lead there.

he leads me beside still waters;*
3   he restores my soul.*

I pictured myself as one of the sheep.  I was moved to experience as fully as possible the healing comfort, the assuring knowing of being in the arms, the presence, the space and place of God. Psalm 23 is, after all, one of the most recited of all scriptures proclaiming a certainty to the mind and comforting the heart to the steadfast but suffering sheep.  It is a landscape psalm in many ways that speaks to an anxious, restless soul suffering from the uncertainty of home – of where home, is. There is present a wisdom and a calm that speaks to God’s people through the ages.  Through time.

psalm 23 shepherdI glanced up at my shepherd.  I see his back.  His staff.  The herd is following but not blindly. We – I – have to look up to see where he is, where he is leading us – me.  Seeing him there, I ease into the trek through the valley and through the psalm.

The landscape comes on my radar screen as I look back down to the ground. A dusty road, in a valley, the foreign geography of our ancestors. The Holy Land – we are trekking through a sacred space. Unfamiliar in terms of  literal experience – I’ve never been to the Holy Land. But as the Lord leads me through the psalm, a sort of warmth – healing? – comes down upon me. It matters not, the landscape. The geography.  The house. The home. As long as I see before me his rod and staff, all is well.

I’m reminded of how important it has been for me to look up from whatever land or ground or home I have found myself in over the past few years –  to locate myself – to get my bearings. To check in. Look up to Him while trekking to see if I am still part of the herd – to be assured that I haven’t wandered off onto some strange road trusting myself and my natural instincts instead of trusting my shepherd, my Lord.

And as I moved through the psalm with my Lord in front leading me through valley, the visual in my head suddenly shifts from the arid, foreign landscape of Jesus’ time to my home – my family home.

IMG_2773And to a recent and very specific moment.  I am sitting at the kitchen table with my mother and father on a Sunday afternoon. We’ve been working hard all day, packing boxes, cleaning out the attic, sorting through the garage. It has been a trying day at this house my parents made a home. Uncertainty and anxiousness about the move they are making hangs in the air, irritates our exchanges, tests our patience with one another. For all the right practical and provisional reasons they are closing up shop in this place, but struggling to see how any place but here in this place – this home – could ever be anything more than a house. Foreign landscape, geography is where they are headed.

A priest from my parent’s worship community had stopped by to pick up a car and a truck full of household items they were donating. Not until I had loaded up his truck did I learn he had brought my father communion.

Since his surgery a few months ago my father has been unable to attend worship services and though he has had many pastoral and healing visits from the clergy of his parish, communion had not been brought to him at home.

So, we move from the driveway into the house, to the kitchen table, bringing with us some anxiousness. My father was exhausted.  My mother worried about his fatigue. And I am concerned about all the logistics of the move and how much there is left to do and how sad – angry even – I am that this home will be no longer the refuge, safe place, and familiar landscape it has been for so much of my life.

We all bring to this moment at the kitchen table a pause – a sort of glance upward.  For them to get their bearings. To check in. Look up to Him amidst this moving day trek to see if they are still part of the herd.  Have they wandered off onto some strange road trusting the practical and provisional instincts to downsize, to move? Are they moving forward by His hand, staff, rod?

As the Lord leads me through the psalm, it is this moment at the table that I recall as I arrive at the last verses. There I am looking across the kitchen table at my beloved father. I glance my beloved mother at the other end.

You prepare a table for me

Together we begin the liturgy, known in The Episcopal Church as “Communion under Special Circumstances,” (BCP, 396-399).  The priest opens our worship with this passage from John 15:

Jesus said, Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.

My parents have born much fruit.  They have abided in Him.  Their lives together have glorified the Lord, God.

I wept as I witnessed my dear father receiving communion, “Dick, take and eat this in remembrance of Him…” And I smiled through my tears as I saw my dear mother looking at him so lovingly, her anxious face dissipated.

Abiding in Him as they have done – glancing up at the shepherd, pausing to get their bearings, they knew – felt – God’s goodness and mercy in the moment.

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.

And there was a grace-filled moment that came to me.  The house of the Lord is not a house – it is not this house that we have all known to be home.

The geography, landscape, ground, path is not what sheep think about. The sheep are safe and known and loved no matter what valley they are in. The sheep are home wherever their shepherd leads them. The sheep don’t make their pasture ‘home.’  The Lord leads them to the green pasture.  The Lord makes the pasture, home.

Dwelling in the Lord, any house will be a home.

And so it will be for mom and dad.

Praise Him.

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More than a girl in country song…

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Trinity Seasons

o-KNEE-HIGH-BOOTS-facebookTime for just fun.  Time to lighten up.  Paused here today and standing in the broad place to muse, to dance, to smile. Time to just throw out what have been more than whispers regarding the Daily Office lectionary.  I’m more than a ‘girl in a country song.’

What?  Yea, well, you’ll get what I mean – I think – by the end of this one..

A bit of a lengthly back story to the claim and title of this post.

The Back Story

For the past few weeks I have sort of holed up.  My own private Idaho time, again. Okay. Fine. We all have them.  I continue, by grace, to go to God’s Word at the start of each day, accessing the Anglican tradition of the Daily Office lectionary, to hear what the Spirit is saying to me, to God’s people, to God’s church.  And though prompted to share some thoughts here on this blog, I’ve held back.  Been held back.

As much as I personally am tied to the spiritual discipline of reading the Daily Lectionary, at some point over the past month I began to wonder if this blog had to be so aligned.  All the whispers coming my way have been just too personal to rephrase generically.  I’ve been reading a chapter of Proverbs daily, too, so perhaps the caution to listen more than speak that runs through that book of Wisdom was encouraging me to think beyond the box of the Daily Office for public (blog) theological reflection.

And so.  A couple of weeks ago as I’m walking, head phones tuned to my favorite Pandora station for brisk walking – country, of course – I have this sort of epiphany.  I hear everything – I mean everything through God’s Word.  Like a lens through which you see something, I hear everything through the good news of Jesus Christ, the Word, Scripture, the bible.

I hear the instructions in a Bikram yoga class through God’s Word.  I hear my daughter’s television scripts through God’s Word.  I hear all stories, actually – political, environmental, global, scientific – through God’s Word. And I hear all music through God’s Word.  And though it is God’s Word – Scripture – that I hear in all these places and forms and stories, God’s Word is not explicitly in, behind, or intended in any of these forms.  But it is there – always there – and I hear it.  Love that.

And with that realization – that I hear all through God’s Word – I began to think about just posting those tunes that say something – at least to me – theological, biblical, prophetic and aligning, where appropriate, with a verse or just a biblical theme.  But I hesitated to do so and instead began to catalogue the tunes in my scriptural journal for use at some other time. Maybe a sermon.  Maybe a teaching.

And then, the Country Music Awards earlier this week.  And the show, hosted by two country celebrities, Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, featured many of my favorites.  How talented is Miranda Lambert?!  My heavens.  And Jason Aldean, and Little Big Town, and well – what a fun, night.

Near the end of the show Carrie Underwood performed her newest single, “Something in the Water,”

which is anything but an explicit, explosive Word – a Word from God.  And good for Underwood – once again bringing to popular culture a “Saved by Jesus” song.  She began her career with such a single, Jesus take the Wheel, you may recall.

But for my taste, I prefer the subtlety of God’s Word wafting through the otherwise known as country-sometimes-love songs crooned by male and female singer-songwriters, alike. And I hear God somehow more clearly when it wafts and is not hammered in (or belted out).

So, I connect that dot with the lingering thought of how to get back to this blog for theological reflection, and wondering if I might step out of the Daily Office Lectionary reading box for a bit, and just have some fun with this music I love, these lyrics that speak to me.  Does God speak to others this way?  Do they (you) hear what I hear? I’ve been asking myself.

And this morning the two came together.  It was as if the Lord, God gave me permission from the Old Testament reading of the Daily Office Lectionary to get out of the box and back here to the blog, and just throw out something fun.

All the Old Testament readings this week have come from the Apocrypha (books of the Bible that were not included in the original Canon), from Sirach, also known as Ecclesiasticus. Today’s passage is calling all together to honor a variety of God’s people – kings, prophets, artists, and…wait for it, singer-songwriters!

2 The Lord apportioned to them* great glory,
his majesty from the beginning.
3 There were those who ruled in their kingdoms,
and made a name for themselves by their valour;
those who gave counsel because they were intelligent;
those who spoke in prophetic oracles;
4 those who led the people by their counsels
and by their knowledge of the people’s lore;
they were wise in their words of instruction;
5 those who composed musical tunes,
   or put verses in writing;

Song: Girl in a Country Song + 1 Corinthians 14:34-36

New Segment – Just for Fun

So…with no more being said, here is my first pairing of a country song which when I hear it – rock to it – walk to it – dance to it – when I hear it, the Holy Spirit suggests a verse, a biblical theme, a prophet, a book, etc.

Take a listen to the song, first.  See what occurs to you before reading my thoughts.

Click on the arrow to play the tune.

Song:  Girl in a Country Song + 1 Corinthians 14:34-36

The first time I heard the tune “Girl in a Country Song,” by Maddie & Tae, I thought of women and God’s church.  Yup. And the verse that popped into my head was from 1 Corinthians.  The one that suggests women shut up in church.  From that one verse, entire denominations have been built – a verse that some biblical scholars suggest was likely written by a student of Paul’s, not Paul himself.  But no matter. Out of the Pauline School come many such suggestions and admonitions that have been twisted over time into some sort of dogmatic ecclesiology regarding women in God’s church.

Like the country song, women in God’s church are not particularly respected nor well represented in many of Paul’s letters.  Here’s what the girls sing,

Bein’ the girl in a country song
How in the world did it go so wrong?
Like all we’re good for
Is looking good for you and your friends on the weekend
Nothing more
We used to get a little respect
Now we’re lucky if we even get
To climb up in your truck, keep my mouth shut and ride along
And be the girl in a country song

Hmm.  Being ‘a woman in the Pauline corpus, how did it go so wrong?’

Perhaps my thought a bit too irreverent for your taste, but I’m just having some fun. It is what I heard.  Like the ‘girl in the country song’  – women have to fight for some respect in God’s church even today – we ain’t a cliche and we ain’t gonna keep our mouth shut.

Recall who was the first to see and proclaim the risen Lord?

Just sayin’.

Praise God.

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My space in this place

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Trinity Seasons

Psalm 1:1 Happy are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
2 but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
   and on his law they meditate day and night.
3 They are like trees
planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.

With every right intention I had plans to move through all the lectionary readings this morning in order to re-ground my daily life in God’s Word.  I slept so well last night knowing I would begin the morning submerged and surrounded with the wisdom and love that speaks to me and all of God’s people from and in scripture. With every intention I planned to just listen – listen to God’s Word, putting aside all the clatter and clutter messing up my head.

gravityFor the past few weeks I have been distanced from my center as different life events have been thrown at or around me.  Untethered from my life force. I’ve felt myself to be in an unknown land, actually. Though the walls around and the floor beneath me are familiar, I have had no sense of gravity or grounding or my space in this place.

And at the same time, I have been acutely aware that I know better – that I have been trained, raised up, equipped, even chosen, to keep my Lord, God at the center, keep His Word ever before me.  I know to pray unceasingly to allow space for the Holy Spirit to animate me, to tether me ever closely to my God – to land my feet and give me a sense of direction.

But, like the zero-gravity battle room in the story, Ender's_game_cover_ISBN_0312932081Ender’s Game, I have awakened the past few weeks and months to life here knowing that at some point during the day, I will be called to the battle room.  As the hours of a day progressed, I found myself just waiting – hours of waiting – to enter the battle-room to fight the enemy.

And, again, like the cadets in the Ender’s Game story, I have walked the corridors to the zero-gravity battle room with a lot of anxiousness, aware that I wasn’t equipped or experienced enough to not be “frozen,” to not lose, once again.

Each cadet who enters the zero-gravity battle room has been selected, based upon their intelligence and promise, to be part of the game.  They are being trained to win a war, to lead the people into victory against an enemy.  To win a war, the cadets are taught, battles must be waged – battles that in the season of training are more often than not, lost.

Re-reading the book recently I saw a lot of parallels to life in seminary. Seminary is a training ground for leaders in God’s church. Seminary teaches and trains the ‘cadet’ to lead God’s church in authentic faith-full living that glorifies the Lord, God.  Seminary teaches and trains church leaders to equip God’s church with armor to know the enemy, to be rightly grounded in God’s law for any battle-room a believer may be thrown into. Seminarians are called – chosen – to attend an institution for such training.

But here the analogies to Ender’s Game end – at least for, today.  I just want to focus on this idea of the zero-gravity battle room and how it is that upon entering it so many genius cadets are at a total loss, beginning with the basic sense of what is up and what is down.  Where is the enemy’s gate, the cadet is asked?  Where is our gate?  How is it that a trained and educated cadet can enter the zero-gravity battle room day after day so confused?  Lost?  Untethered?

The zero-gravity battle practice room I so anxiously anticipate entering every day has been a sort of hell-hole.  Made me inert.  I plod down the corridor, battle-suit (the armor of God) in hand. Such a rub. When you know you should have – do have by faith and training and education –  the experience and tools  – the heart and faith – to deal with whatever is hurled your way.

But, again like the zero-gravity battle-room in the Ender’s Game, it is just a room – just a season. And I, like the cadets, leave the battle-room on any given day.  I return to the life that functions in gravity, exhausted by the exercise but grateful to have some functional, practical space to return to. For the cadets, it is their bunk room. Reprieve – a peace which passes understanding? – comes as they close their eyes and reflect upon their failed attempts to master the zero-gravity battle room.  Meditating, if you will, upon the law of gravity.

And I likewise, lie down to sleep in prayer and meditate upon the law of the Lord as Psalm 1 whispers. And in so doing, I am able to offer God thanks for giving me yet another day to figure things out, and pray that upon awakening, God’s presence would ground me.  That I would not awaken again adrift in my own weightlessness, my own profound-less, thinking. Wallowing. Wondering.

I did not make it through all the lectionary readings this morning.  The Holy Spirit paused me at the first verses of the first psalm.  Paused at the intersection of my intention to get back to God’s Word and the Spirit’s Word waiting for me.  In those first verses I heard God’s promise that in the intention of immersing myself in His wisdom and love, of meditating upon the Lord’s law, I am rightly grounded. I do know what is up, what is down.  I am tethered to my life force.  I am equipped rightly for the battle to come today.

Praise Him.

Daily Office Lectionary

Daily Office Lectionary AM Psalm 1, 2, 3; PM Psalm 4, 7 Micah 7:1-7; Acts 26:1-23; Luke 8:26-39

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Wordplay

Posted on October 1, 2014 by Trinity Seasons

Acts 21:17 When we arrived in Jerusalem, the brothers welcomed us warmly. 18 The next day Paul went with us to visit James; and all the elders were present. 19 After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. 20 When they heard it, they praised God. Then they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the law. 21 They have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs. 22 What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. 23 So do what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. 24 Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself observe and guard the law. 25 But as for the Gentiles who have become believers, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.” 26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day, having purified himself, he entered the temple with them, making public the completion of the days of purification when the sacrifice would be made for each of them.

I don’t know how I would ever be able to comprehend the magnitude of Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles without visual aids.  Throughout my seminary studies and specifically in the courses on the New Testament and Paul’s corpus, I found myself multi-tasking on my laptop just to keep my head above water with all the information coming my way. Lecture notes in one tab, Google images and maps, in another, links to TED talks on the subject in yet another.  Not to mention my Logos Bible Software in the background, as well as my Amazon Prime account at the ready for any book that was referenced – I had to ‘see’ the cover,’ to commit the reference to memory.  I had to see what house churches really looked like, the ones in which Paul and other early Christians gathered, worshiped, prayed the Eucharist.  They were quite large, actually – not as I had imagined at all.

So, I learn with the help of visual aids.  Words, alone, to describe or teach something aren’t enough to stick in the deep recesses of my mind. And so often when reading scripture, I find I have to lift my eyes from the written word to allow the Holy Spirit breathing room to illustrate for me what Paul, or John, or Hosea or anyone else is saying, is writing.  I need images to comprehend.

Paul, The ApostleThe passage from the Book of Acts today is not all that complicated, but because I had recently seen this particular scene in a film – Paul’s visit to James and the new Jewish Christians in Jerusalem – I felt the depth of what was going on here as I haven’t before.

It is so easy to read Acts as a ‘how to’ book or travelogue, even.  A book in the bible with a plan to follow for church building, for organization, evangelism, etc.  A book of information more than one of revelation.  With the help of imagery, I am able to access the work of the Holy Spirit in Acts – the revelation, not just the information.  Give me a visual of the context – the scene – and I am better able to connect dots for what the Holy Spirit is revealing on any given day.

In the film, it is the facial expressions of James, Paul, Barnabas – all those gathered to honor the work of one another and to express gratitude to each other for bringing so many new believers into the broad place, into kingdom living.  In their facial expressions I see what I don’t read in the Acts account – empathy, love, a softness that the words alone don’t convey.

This was a big deal – what were the Jerusalem Jewish Christians under James going to demand of the new Gentile Christians  – those that Paul had gone to – with regard to Torah and to identity?

Paul had anticipated the anxiety amongst the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem before arriving. He knew their reservation about those who came to Jesus not through the Torah, not through the law, but would insist that the new believers were as much a part of God’s church as those who were born into the Torah.  That edginess – that conviction of Paul’s that insisted on things – may have left no room for compromise or breathing room for the spirit to soften Paul’s heart, James’ heart, to do the work God was doing through each of them.

Point is, that this tension between the two factions – Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians – is all coming to a head in the meeting referenced in today’s New Testament passage.  The tension is about power – who had the power to determine the nature of God’s church and a Christian’s identity? It is also about pride and territory and leadership, about who is in and who is out, about who was called to proclaim, about the difference in value between those apostles who had walked with Jesus and those who were called after his resurrection.  All this tension is there, in this scene and yet, the film helped me see the Holy Spirit’s presence which trumped all the tension. The words of James and the other elders to Paul are delivered in love. They are received in love. There’s a peace in the room that passes understanding.

Jesus used imagery to teach.  A lot. He used the context of the hearer to break through pre-conceived notions of who ‘the other’ was or was not, what commandments to follow, how to pray, how to love, welcome, heal. Jesus was the master illustrator of God’s Word and Will.

Paul used lots of words – lots and lots and lots of words and not much imagery (though that being said, it is Paul’s imagery of church as the body of Christ that is one of the most memorable and profound of all biblical images).  He was, after all, the revered student of the law.  Perhaps because of his wordiness, it takes great effort on my part to comprehend. To get past the words and all the information to the revelation and comprehension requires of me ongoing study. It takes total concentration to connect all the dots Paul throws out, especially in his letters to the Galatians, to the Romans, to the Philippians, and Philemon – the letters that come later in his ministry, the letters where he is having to work out some of the inconsistencies he preached early on when he thought Jesus was coming back any day.

Jason Mraz is a singer-songwriter known for his wordiness.  In a single released after his first year’s success on the music scene, he croons about how his passion for words has determined for him a very narrow bandwidth for being heard or understood in the music world.  And yet, it is because of this gift of gab, this gift of wordplay, that his music breaks through that narrow bandwidth to reach such a vast audience.  Mraz is one of the top selling singer songwriters, today.

Here’s the tune, Wordplay.

This is how many read Paul, I think.  A wordy, exhaustingly wordy, proclaimer.  But his gift for gab, his gift for words is precisely what reached the Gentiles and broke through the narrow bandwidth of the Torah and the law to bring into the broad place, God’s people.

Praise Him.

Daily Office Lectionary

Daily Office Lectionary AM Psalm 101, 109:1-4(5-19)20-30; PM Psalm 119:121-144 Hosea 4:11-19; Acts 21:15-26; Luke 5:27-39

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Before the Holy One we are cleaned from the inside out

Posted on September 26, 2014 by Trinity Seasons

Clean+Heart[1]The gospel teaching today in Luke is told also in Mark. And there’s not much variation from the theme – the same vocabulary, the same location, dynamic, and truth.

The pericope is titled “The Man with the Unclean Spirit.”  When you read it take note of the detail that this takes place in the synagogue on the sabbath. The man, then, is someone sitting next to you in a pew on Sunday morning at worship (or more perhaps the man is you sitting in a pew on Sunday morning at worship) and just as another lesson is being read, this man stands to confront Jesus – to call out the Holy One.

Luke 4:31 He went down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and was teaching them on the sabbath. 32 They were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority. 33 In the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, 34 “Let us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” 35 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” When the demon had thrown him down before them, he came out of him without having done him any harm. 36 They were all amazed and kept saying to one another, “What kind of utterance is this? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and out they come!” 37 And a report about him began to reach every place in the region.

What emerges out of this text each time I read either version is a reminder that in the presence of holiness, that in the face of grace, that before Jesus and in the light, unclean spirits, brokenness, sin, addictions, demons are released.

This demon that resided within, resided within a believer, a member of the synagogue, a fellow parishioner.

We – each and every one of us – have unclean spirits, demons and addictions, lies and unhealthy hearts that we keep under wraps for one reason or another. We believe. We are baptized. We know we are forgiven.  We worship. We study and pray God’s Word.  We may even proclaim it. This man with the unclean spirit?  This is every man.

Until the presence of the Holy One, the sin, the transgression, the addiction, lie, misdeed, unclean spirit is left unexposed – both to the community and perhaps, even to the believer himself.  The holy community – the worshiping community, in this case the synagogue – seems to be as surprised at the presence of an unclean spirit in their congregation as they are at the powerful, authoritative presence of the Holy Spirit. Yet the truth of the matter is that both – both unclean spirits within AND the holy Holy Spirit are present in any and all believing, worshiping communities.

And the man with the unclean spirit?  Though the unclean spirit had resided alongside his believing spirit, it would no more. In the presence of light – face to face with Jesus – it is excised. The unclean spirit has no chance but to be disclosed.  To be exhaled – released and removed from the dark interior hidden place no other man could see, not even fellow believers.

And the man remains. His believing spirit remains within with more room – breathing room – for the truth and light to transform him from the now cleaned inside out. The man remains in the worshiping community – the synagogue. Remains before Jesus. Touched, healed by Jesus. Remains in the light.

Praise Him.

Daily Office Lectionary

Daily Office Lectionary AM Psalm 88; PM Psalm 91, 92 Esther 8:1-8,15-17 or Judith 13:1-20; Acts 19:21-41; Luke 4:31-37

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They did not believe in him

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Trinity Seasons

John 12: 36While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.’
After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them.

This juxtaposition is so odd.  Jesus preaches the light, then leaves to hide.  We hide in the dark, don’t we?  Not the light.

But as counterintuitive as this may seem, there is some suggestion of harmony and connection, here.  Specifically, the Holy Spirit brought to mind discipleship, journey and life cycle. In the juxtaposition of being exposed to the light – to Jesus – with the absence of Jesus soon after – I am paused to wonder about what role place and time (context) plays in sustaining and maturing a believer – a child of the light. In these two verses I sense something about faith formation.

I thought of all the children – mine, included – who were raised in a worship community where Jesus’s ministry – his humanity as a wise prophet, inclusive and compassionate – might have been elevated over his divinity – his identity as the one and only son of the Lord, God, the messiah. Where the worshiping community gathered to do as Jesus did – to do good works, but where the reality of Jesus Christ as the risen Lord, the forgiver of sin, the one sent to claim victory over evil, over Satan, and death – where that reality was wondered about but not claimed for the individual believer or the corporate worshiping community?

How is faith matured in this kind of worshiping community?  Is this passage saying something about that?

My experience in some such worshiping communities is that they are filled with believers – followers of the light – children of the light – who don’t really know what they believe in when it comes to Jesus.  Often they don’t have a conversion story having been baptized into the faith as an infant – so that it is almost taken for granted.  In many ways this was my experience up to my mid-twenties when someone suggested that if I got to know Jesus, personally – got to know what I believed about him, read God’s Word as if all of it really happened as God revealed, as if the Holy Spirit was at work in me transforming my head and heart – I might find some answers to some of the big questions coming my way.

But, I digress.

Sower 02The pairing of the two verses as a faith formation teaching – Jesus + Light, then Jesus hides – is a familiar image found throughout scripture and especially in agrarian metaphors. Like seeds – the mustard seed? – that are born in the light, then sowed by the Lord, God…

…hidden in soil, sheltered from the outside elements,

watered – baptized –

growthand then pulled up out of the soil by the light, to grow into the full plant the seed was called to be.

seed_starting_heroExtending the metaphor.  How does the seed grow under artificial light? Light constructed by humans to replicate the sun and its contribution to growing the seed to a plant? The mustard seed will grow – but differently.  Almost individually, in a sense.  Not needing nor benefitting from the community of other believers, not grown up in a field alongside others.  And though still beautiful in its own right, how much more lovely the field of believers than the individual plant on a table top under the lamp?  mustard-field

When a worshiping community constructs an interpretation of Jesus that waffles on who he is and why he came and why he died and was resurrected is it losing the full power of the light to mature the community of believers?

The gospel shouts out to me today – no whispers.  Our worshiping communities will only grow if we have inwardly, personally, been raised up and grown in the true believing light of Jesus Christ.  And we best not fear, as so many worship community leaders have through time, the recriminations from the world believers are called to serve in his name.

42Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; 43for they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God.

Our story is God’s glory.

Praise God.

Daily Office Lectionary

Daily Office Lectionary AM Psalm 69:1-23(24-30)31-38; PM Psalm 73 Esther 1:1-4,10-19 or Judith 4:1-15; Acts 17:1-15; John 12:36b-43

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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