Well fed, lean soul

Posted on October 3, 2022 by Trinity Seasons

Been awhile once again since reflecting on God’s word with y’all. After my own private devotion time this morning, I started to get right to things when after receiving a text message from a friend about the challenges of parenting adult children – because, well, that job doesn’t stop when they move out, marry and have children of their own – I realized how easily I’ve slipped into morning routines dictated by culture….coffee, calendar, chores. Since leaving full-time ministry, I have allowed morning routines to trump this one regular discipline of mine of reflecting on God’s word – which I commend to others so often – a discipline that never fails to inform those others and makes such a difference in how I enter and live the day.  

I was paused at the first reading (lection) appointed for the day, Psalm 106. About Israel – God’s chosen people to be light and salt to the nations – and their journey with the Lord. The psalm recounts their story with God from Egypt through the wilderness, to the Promised Land. A journey over years and years and the times of trusting the Lord, not trusting him, trusting him again.  It is their story – one Walter Brueggemann describes as times of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. These verses from the psalm illustrate this idea:

12 Then they believed his words * and sang him songs of praise.

13 But they soon forgot his deeds *and did not wait for his counsel.

How often and frequently I forget God’s deeds – his actions in the world, and in mine, and in the lives of all those I love.  And by not taking time to recount the deeds as the psalmist does, I often lose my biblical-footing before taking in the day’s readings or taking on any given day. In forgetting, I’ll get impatient with a word or whisper from the Spirit urging me in one direction or another, or worse, I miss entirely the word or whisper and wisdom, eludes. Truth is I have gone for long stretches of time without hearing anything from the Spirit. And preached during those seasons as if I was in great communication, confident that God’s wisdom was infusing the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart.

Like the people of Israel I sense the periods of my disorientation have been far more frequent than those of re-orientation. Yet, also like them, faithful.  Maybe I need to look back over my journey – recount it – from God’s point-of-view, as the psalmist does here for God’s people.

My journey with the Lord that began, when?  How many times in my periods of disorientation have I prayed for a ‘thing’ or need instead of for wisdom and understanding? I wonder what my season in the wilderness has looked like to God. Have I, did I, pursue His counsel? Did I give Him thanks for the trials brought my way? Did I learn? Have I learned? I wonder.

Reading further in the psalm, I pause again reading, “… he gave them what they wanted “, what they thought they wanted – food that would sustain them, but did not strengthen or feed the deep well of their soul – their being, which I take to mean that the people chose the easy way, thinking they knew how to meet their own needs.

14 A craving seized them in the wilderness, * and they put God to the test in the desert.

15 He gave them what they asked, *but sent leanness into their soul.

Comfortable coffee-calendar-chores-like mornings. How many of us chose this easy way to start every day? Maybe we throw on an audio mediation or even take a quick view of the day’s news headlines. as we head out the door. And at our phone fingertips, a million apps to launch us into the new day – the day the Lord has made, mind you – but doing little to strengthen our souls, where God’s wisdom lands.

God’s heart for Israel allowed him to give what they asked for in their impatience, but how his heart longed for them to have trusted him – to not have forgotten his promises and deeds throughout their journey in the wilderness. To have not petitioned for the easy fix – feed us! – without regard to the relationship and history of trust being developed over the journey. How God longs for us to have full, meaningful lives – every single day that we are on this side of the dirt. And we don’t get there willy nilly. We need to seek God’s counsel, God’s wisdom. Not quick fixes.

And for me, that begins with dwelling in His word and pausing where God would have me pause, to hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people on this day.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Daily Office Monday: AM Psalm 106:1-18; PM Psalm 106:19-48
Hosea 14:1-9; Acts 22:30-23:11; Luke 6:39-49

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The Just Steward

Posted on September 20, 2022 by Trinity Seasons

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 20 C Luke 16:1-13 Sermon preached September 18, 2022 at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Orinda CA

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Just a thought

Posted on August 13, 2021 by Trinity Seasons

Psalm 107

33 The Lord changed rivers into deserts, *and water-springs into thirsty ground,

34 A fruitful land into salt flats, *because of the wickedness of those who dwell there.

35 He changed deserts into pools of water *and dry land into water-springs.

36 He settled the hungry there, *and they founded a city to dwell in.

37 They sowed fields, and planted vineyards, *and brought in a fruitful harvest.

38 He blessed them, so that they increased greatly; *he did not let their herds decrease.

39 Yet when they were diminished and brought low, *through stress of adversity and sorrow,

40 (He pours contempt on princes *and makes them wander in trackless wastes)

41 He lifted up the poor out of misery *and multiplied their families like flocks of sheep.

42 The upright will see this and rejoice, *but all wickedness will shut its mouth.

This morning’s psalm describes a cosmos in which the Creator allows the inhabitants of the creation to suffer the consequences of their wrong-headed decisions to not follow the Creator, worship the Creator, abide by the Creator’s will and rules that the creation may flourish.  The folks named here and throughout the biblical story that suffer the dry land and lost crops are those who choose to do life their way. 

Today, environmentalists on both sides of the issue, who fail to see God’s hand in all of creation are at an impasse with respect to the issue itself – is climate change an existential threat?  Is the earth becoming uninhabitable in just 10 years?

And with respect to solutions – yes human activity adds to the problem but I wonder if the bigger problem isn’t that humans have turned from God and in so doing, seeking solutions that might be at odds with God’s intentions from the beginning – namely, that humans steward the good earth in partnership with and at the behest of the Creator, rightly. 

Point is – God doesn’t wave hands and dry up deserts or send rain willy nilly. The biblical poets recognize that when they live in concert with God and God’s will – loving neighbor, stewarding creation, showing mercy – life flourishes. And when they turn away and try to do things their own way, things don’t work out so well. 

Just a thought. For today.

Praise God from whom all blessings, flow.

Saturday Daily Office Readings:

AM Psalm 107:33-43, 108:1-6(7-13); PM Psalm 33
2 Samuel 16:1-23; Acts 22:17-29; Mark 11:1-11

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“Selfie” Prayers behind me

Posted on August 27, 2019 by Trinity Seasons

So this morning’s Psalm got me started – and not in a welcome way. As I turned to my scriptural journal to record some thoughts prompted by the psalmist’s cry to cry no more, I was greeted by a reflection made just a year ago.  I resisted the temptation to read what I wrote last year, suspecting it likely touched on the thing that sent me to bed weeping for too many nights over the past years.

Psalm 6 is considered a Lament and Penitential psalm prayed individually and corporately, alike.  It speaks directly and explicitly about pain and physical illness and brokenness. Someone who is critically ill personally – or in its historical liturgical setting, a remnant-sized congregation exiled – appeals to God for pity, healing, mercy and to be saved from death.

1 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger; *
do not punish me in your wrath.

2 Have pity on me, Lord, for I am weak; *
heal me, Lord, for my bones are racked.

3 My spirit shakes with terror; *
how long, O Lord, how long?

4 Turn, O Lord, and deliver me; *
save me for your mercy’s sake.

Importantly, to my way of thinking and unlike traditional laments, the individual or congregation’s present situation is not linked either to innocence nor transgression on the part of the psalmist. In other words, no one is to blame. The illness is what it is. The remnant in exile is where it is. The psalmist is crying out to God that the misery, pain and sadness come to an end – and preferably on this side of dirt.

5 For in death no one remembers you; *
and who will give you thanks in the grave?

6 I grow weary because of my groaning; *
every night I drench my bed
and flood my couch with tears.

7 My eyes are wasted with grief *

I lived this psalm for a long season of my life – couldn’t pray it without my eyes swelling with the tears that had only just drenched my bed the night before.   It was in those years that I was praying and reading most of the lections through my own selfie-lens.  Every word of scripture found its way to may achy breaky heart to assure me that in God’s time the thing lost would be restored.  As I envisioned, dreamt of, hoped for.

But meanwhile, as I self-obsessed and prayed for something that was never going to be, life went on.  Like real life.  All around me.  As Dan Piraro’s panel illustrates so aptly, my selfie-lens to the scripture and the psalms especially, blinded me to the reality of the life I had and had been gifted.  My heartbreak was what it was.  Period.

A selfie-focused lament makes little room for reality – sort of like a prayer operating in denial.  That’s how I came to see it.  And denial is not a weapon against heartbreak, a dream eluded, loss of a loved one, against an aging parent with memory loss, loss of movement and mobility, loss of a job, a home.  A selfie-focused lament holds onto false hope.  It is an all smiles portrait in front of a beachfront with a tidal wave in the background.

I prayed Psalm 6 in this way for so long, giving props to the psalmist for ‘getting me’ and my situation, lo those millennia ago.  I was so caught up in my head and heart I couldn’t see the forest through the trees.  Couldn’t see that this state of lament would ever change.  I was pretty sure I’d live in that weepy tear-drenched place ad nauseam.  Which is why I hesitated to read what I had written just a year ago in my scriptural journal.  When I turned there I thought I’d read another woe-is-me entry.

But praise God, that is not what I found.  Just a year ago this psalm popped up and I was reflecting on how grateful I was to have left the season of lament.  How grateful I was to have been given time in the past years to broaden the lens through which I read scripture in lieu of the narrow self-focused one I used for personal application to my detriment.

I’ve come to appreciate the universal truths woven into nearly every story the Holy Spirit inspired the psalmists, scribes, prophets, eyewitnesses, gospelers, and apostles to write.  In so doing, I’m given breathing room to pray a psalm like today’s and not weep for me, myself and I but to give thanks that we have a loving God who hears and accepts our prayers.  All of our prayers.  From all of us.  In every season.  Through every trial.  Exile.  Illness. Heartbreak.

Praise God from whom all blessings and seasons of lament, flow.

Daily Office Readings: AM Psalm 5, 6; PM Psalm 10, 11 
1 Kings 1:38-2:4; Acts 26:24-27:8; Mark 13:28-37

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What’s in a (nick) name?

Posted on July 26, 2019 by Trinity Seasons

I gave a lot of thought to the naming of my children. I considered things like tradition, family customs, uniqueness, two syllables at most – I was big on that one – didn’t want others nicknaming them.  I had grown up with too many ‘illys’ and ‘allys’ and was always grateful to have a name that was hard to cut off, shorten or abuse entirely.  My dad’s name is Richard – just imagine all the variations on that theme and you’ll get my dislike of giggle-worthy nicknames.

A few years ago in a chat with a friend about today’s reading (and the others this week from the Book of Acts that reports of Paul’s meeting with the authorities in Jerusalem to establish the boundary lines for the new covenant community before heading off to Gentile territory in Antioch), my friend said,

“That’s it! You are Barnabas!”

I replied,

“Barnabas? No – I’m more like one of the two distraught disciples on the road to Emmaus – one of those unnamed followers who walked with the risen Lord and didn’t know it until at table with him.  I am no ‘named’ biblical character.  Like.. at all.”

My friend had always identified himself not as Paul, but like him inasmuch as a modern-day prophet he had and was suffering as prophets do in God’s church.  And, too, like Paul,  years of his ministry were spent as a road warrior preaching and teaching a more robust expression of the good news in today’s church than he judged it to be. He had spoken to me at length and often about the prophetic tradition in the Hebrew Scriptures and the continuing thread in the New Testament, suggesting that the juxtaposition of prophetic voices and pastoral ministry was rather hard to come by both in current and biblical times. The only one to do it and do it perfectly was Jesus.

So, at the time, in calling me “Barnabas” I sort of kind of understood what he was saying and sort of kind of accepted it as a compliment.  He was affirming in a small way my call to the priesthood. Prophets aren’t always a good fit for parish ministry, but a smaller time prophet like Barnabas who was a friend to the big gun? – well, that might work.

What I didn’t know then but have learned since is that Barnabas was so much more. From NT Wright’s book on Paul[1],

… Barnabas…is one of the minor heroes of the book of Acts… generous-spirited.  Barnabas was originally from Cyprus, a Jew from the tribe of Levi. His actual name was Joseph, but Luke explains that the Jesus-followers in Jerusalem gave him the nickname Barnabas, which means “son of encouragement.” Some people have the gift of enabling others to flourish. Barnabas was one of those.

Barnabas was a nickname!!!!  Barnabas was a generous-spirit, otherwise known as pastoral!  And he was a Levite – the tribe of the priests who assisted in temple worship!

Oh my, oh my . I love that his name means son of encouragement.  I love that.  Might I rest here, in that place? As an encourager for other big guns like Paul? Enabling others to flourish?  Maybe this is a word for me?  Is it the time to let go of trying to land my ministry in one locale?  Might I enjoin other road warriors in some way as an encourager?

My friend the modern-day prophet did me a good thing, calling me Barnabas. I was then and am now blessed.

Praise God from whom all blessings – and names and nicknames – flow.

Daily Office Readings:  Psalm 40, 54; PM Psalm 51  1 Samuel 31:1-13; Acts 15:12-21; Mark 5:21-43

 

[1] Wright, N. T.. Paul (p. 85). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.

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Church, Church. You are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Come. Sit at my feet.

Posted on July 22, 2019 by Trinity Seasons

Amos 8:1-12
Psalm 52
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42

As Jesus and his disciples went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

[In many churches today] …the Bible is a form of verbal wallpaper, pleasant enough in the background, but you stop thinking about it after you have lived in the house for a few weeks.” NT Wright

 

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Go and Do Likewise

Posted on July 15, 2019 by Trinity Seasons

Today’s Sermon

Proper 10 C

Amos 7:7-17
Psalm 82
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37

Luke 10:25-37

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, `Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

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Be joyful in the Lord, all you…

Posted on June 25, 2019 by Trinity Seasons

Psalm 100 Jubilate Deo

1 Be joyful in the Lord, all you lands; *
serve the Lord with gladness
and come before his presence with a song.

2 Know this: The Lord himself is God; *
he himself has made us, and we are his;
we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

3 Enter his gates with thanksgiving;
go into his courts with praise; *
give thanks to him and call upon his Name.

4 For the Lord is good;
his mercy is everlasting; *
and his faithfulness endures from age to age.

This morning’s psalm is a familiar one to those who pray the Daily Office liturgy, Morning Prayer. It is one of the ‘options’ presented in the Book of Common Prayer to pray at the start of the service.

I learned the psalm as a young person praying it out loud and in worship, memorizing as I heard it being prayed by the gathered body.  I sometimes would hold the Book of Common Prayer in front of me – like the big folks – but I wasn’t reading, then – just imitating the words and actions of the congregation in ways that made me feel so much a part.  This psalm and all the prayers of the BCP liturgies I learned by heart and in my heart.

When I arrived at seminary and began attending Morning Prayer occasionally before a first class, I was pleased to be able to recite the entire service, including this psalm, without having to read from the BCP.

Imagine my surprise – delight in a joke’s on you sort of way – when I began studying the BCP, liturgy and its origins and found that I had memorized this beloved petition – well, mistakenly is the best way to put it.  I had misheard from day one as a child one little word.  It was a word that had always brought a smile to my heart – an unusual one I had thought – for a psalm. But it made sense at the same time – it was poetic and light and ‘worked’ with the praise and joy the psalmist invites us into.

Be joyful in the Lord, all you

…wait for it…

LADS!

Be joyful in the Lord, all you lads!

As in happy lil’ tykes like Snoopy and Charlie Brown, here – happy, happy Lads to be praising God together.

No, instead it reads, Be joyful in the Lord, all you lands – as in the whole world – all the nations, all the Gentiles.

But how sweet of me, I think,  to have thought as I learned the psalm as a child, that the psalmist was directing this joy to us little  ‘lads’  there in the pews alongside the big folks.

To this day I cannot stop myself from smiling when praying this psalm either at Morning Prayer or when appointed for the day’s readings.

I’m grateful to have been raised in a church tradition that invited me into to praise God in worship – to participate with the entire congregation – lads and all. To have stood beside the adults praying collects that were written centuries before, reciting creeds that had been crafted by 4th century theologians, boldly saying the Lord’s Prayer as Jesus had taught with the entire congregation, singing with angels and archangels the Sanctus, standing and kneeling before the Lord with old and young, alike.

I’m grateful to have been raised in a tradition that embodies worship – that calls upon the entire body of Christ to participate – all the lands and the lads, alike.

Praise God from whom all blessings and heart smiles, flow.

Daily Office Readings: AM Psalm 97, 99, [100]; PM Psalm 94, [95]
1 Samuel 6:1-16; Acts 5:27-42; Luke 21:37-22:13

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O Lord, my God, my Savior, by day and night I cry to you.

Posted on June 21, 2019 by Trinity Seasons

Psalm 88: 1 O Lord, my God, my Savior, *
by day and night I cry to you.

2 Let my prayer enter into your presence; *
incline your ear to my lamentation.

3 For I am full of trouble; *
my life is at the brink of the grave.

4 I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; *
I have become like one who has no strength;

5 Lost among the dead, *
like the slain who lie in the grave,

6 Whom you remember no more, *
for they are cut off from your hand.

7 You have laid me in the depths of the Pit, *
in dark places, and in the abyss.

8 Your anger weighs upon me heavily, *
and all your great waves overwhelm me.

9 You have put my friends far from me;
you have made me to be abhorred by them; *
I am in prison and cannot get free.

10 My sight has failed me because of trouble; *
Lord, I have called upon you daily;
I have stretched out my hands to you.

11 Do you work wonders for the dead? *
will those who have died stand up and give you thanks?

12 Will your loving-kindness be declared in the grave? *
your faithfulness in the land of destruction?

13 Will your wonders be known in the dark? *
or your righteousness in the country where all is forgotten?

14 But as for me, O Lord, I cry to you for help; *
in the morning my prayer comes before you.

15 Lord, why have you rejected me? *
why have you hidden your face from me?

16 Ever since my youth, I have been wretched and at the point of death; *
I have borne your terrors with a troubled mind.

17 Your blazing anger has swept over me; *
your terrors have destroyed me;

18 They surround me all day long like a flood; *
they encompass me on every side.

19 My friend and my neighbor you have put away from me, *
and darkness is my only companion.

I have two loved ones who have each awakened this day with at least the feeling of lament and despair this psalm expresses.  They are each overwhelmed, shut off and out, put away, not seen, and not feeling or knowing the presence of the Lord in their suffering. For different reasons and circumstances, each of them begins this day that the Lord has made not with hope and light but with despair and darkness.

One cries out to God, as the psalmist – ‘hear my prayer, listen to me, don’t forget me!’  The other simply cries, alone.

And I sit here crying with each of them – sort of frozen – knowing that in this moment – right here and now, the Holy Spirit has put this lament before me so that I not give up on the either of them.  At least with respect to doing something, saying something that helps them move from despair to hope, from darkness to the way of love.

Only yesterday was I saying to a dear friend how I had run out of ideas – how my words, prayers, and gestures had been rejected by the one who cries alone.  I recounted to her that nothing I was saying or doing was helping him not shut down, not despair.  My friend wondered with me whether I might just pull back for a season – not give up so much as to lay low, leave him alone.  That didn’t feel quite right, but I went to bed wondering if maybe that was the right next step.  Just leave him alone.  Crying out, “Lord, what would you have me say?  Do?  Here I am, Lord.”

Then.  This morning and this psalm.

I am simply stunned at the whispers the Holy Spirit is sending.  I sit at my kitchen table with the day’s readings before me after having spent a moment gazing at a sunrise photo I was sent in my early morning email – one to mark today’s Summer Solstice.  

I have a fond affection for the sun, the moon, stars, and clouds – they are my daily reminders of the depth and breadth of God’s creation. My#cloudsofwitnesses.  My previous night’s prayer and cry out, Let my prayer enter into your presence; incline your ear to my lamentation acknowledged in the receipt of the photo from a friend who knows me, knows my delight at all things sunrise, sunset, clouds, stars, moon. My heart smiled. I had been blessed and seen – my prayer entered into God’s presence.

It was a good moment to turn from the morning emails and business to my quiet time with God’s Word.

But first a soundtrack. I needed one this morning to help me break the anxious silence I experience when I am tuned to self, only.  Instrumental music playing as I read scripture helps me connect with the great #cloudofwitnesses voices that have gone before advising and teaching. And so, I clicked on the instrumental station of Pandora.  A familiar Stanton Lanier piece played. I turned to the readings and read the first psalm.  And then this. This piece played. I knew it by sound, but not the artist nor the title. I looked it up.

The title alone brought me to tears. From the album, A Fresh Beyond, the track, A Mother to Him by Jim Chappell. It was a whisper. I felt blessed and heard.

You see I am in many ways a mother to both of these loved ones. And both are stuck – or believe they are – frozen in a present moment that points to no future, let alone a fresh one.

The album and track title and the melody have me in tears.  I’m a mess of tears and despair myself as I consider their ‘stuckness’ and ‘aloneness’.

One cries out to God, as the psalmist. The other simply cries, alone.

I have prayed with the one who cries out to God. I have been at her side in many such moments throughout the years. The Holy Spirit has had me anoint her, laugh with her. Tease out her rigidly held convictions about sin and judgment and Jesus and misguided theology about personal salvation and heaven as a destination, to get to the heart of the gospel – the kingdom come ‘on earth’. The way of love.

And though today, this day, she is just not feeling it, today though she laments and charges those caring for her with mistreating her, though today she is hasn’t had relief as she believed would come her way because of God’s mercy, she cries out – to our loving abba Father, to God. Like the psalmist. Like Job. Like all who suffer and can’t reconcile the injustice of the world with the loving God they know and trust. Despite – in spite – of her despairing dark no-future without pain moment, she cries out to God.

I have prayed for the one who simply cries, alone. I don’t know that he hasn’t cried out to God. I don’t know where his laments are directed. But as he has closed off voices from those who love him, I suspect he goes deeper and deeper into himself and his shame, unable to see that friend and neighbor haven’t abandoned him.

19 My friend and my neighbor you have put away from me, *
and darkness is my only companion.

This psalm before me this morning with this track playing ushered to my heart and mind’s eye these two children of God. Their circumstances and place in life have no connection or commonality but that I am connected to each of them as a ‘mother’.

The Spirit is speaking to me this morning – trying to help me know how I am to help.  I have felt so helpless when it comes to speaking and being the way of love for the one who has put away from himself his friends and neighbors.

I cry out, “What would you have me do? Say? How would you have me be with him?”

Praise you Lord, God who made all things – who began my day with a glimpse of your mighty works in the solstice sunrise and a sense of being seen.  Praise you Lord, God, who brought to my ears the track A Mother to Him as I prayed your word, giving me a sense of being heard.  Praise you Lord God, who put into my care these two suffering children of God.

Praise you Lord God who sent me this psalm to feel my loved one’s existential pain and despair.  I feel it, Lord.  I know how alone they each feel.  I hear them calling in the night.

One cries out to you.  The other simply cries out.

And I cry, too.

1 O Lord, my God, my Savior, *
by day and night I cry to you.

I hear him calling in the night.  Here I am, Lord.  Here I am, loved one.  You are not alone.  Though you cry out not to the Lord, God,   I do! 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Daily Office Readings:  AM Psalm 88; PM Psalm 91, 92
1 Samuel 3:1-21; Acts 2:37-47; Luke 21:5-19

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The Ascension of Jesus is Day 1 of Thy Kingdom Come

Posted on May 30, 2019 by Trinity Seasons

Today is the feast of The Ascension – the occasion on which the risen Christ is taken into heaven after appearing to his followers for forty days (Acts 1:1-11, Mk 16:19). The Ascension marks the conclusion of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances. It is the final elevation of his human nature to divine glory and the near presence of God.[1]

I marked the Ascension Day last year by enjoining the parish where I was serving at the time to the global prayer movement, Thy Kingdom Come – a movement that invites Christians around the world to pray for more people to come to know Jesus.  Here’s the story of its origins:

As stated on the homepage of Thy Kingdom Come:

After the very first Ascension Day the disciples gathered with Mary, constantly devoting themselves to prayer while they waited for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Like them, our reliance on the gift of the Holy Spirit is total – on our own we can do nothing.

Through the centuries Christians have gathered at that time to pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit. ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ picks up this tradition. Over the past three years more and more worshipping communities have dedicated the days between Ascension and Pentecost to pray ‘Come Holy Spirit’.

We are praying that the Spirit would inspire and equip us to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with our friends and families, our communities and networks. It has been amazing how many varied ways there have been in which people from every tradition have taken up this challenge. The effects have been remarkable.

It is our prayer that those who have not yet heard the Good News of Jesus Christ and his love for the world will hear it for themselves, and respond and follow Him. Specifically, we again invite each and every Christian across the country to pray that God’s Spirit might work in the lives of 5 friends who have not responded with their ‘Yes’ to God’s call.

Whether you have joined in ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ before or not, we invite you to take part this year – along with churches from over 65 different denominations in 114 countries around the world.

Acts 1, 2 “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses …to the ends of the earth. When he had said this…he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight…Then they returned to Jerusalem … and were constantly devoting themselves to prayer… When the day of Pentecost had come they were all together in one place… All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit… and that day about three thousand persons were added.”

In praying ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ we all commit to playing our part in the renewal of the nations and the transformation of communities.

During the 11 days of Thy Kingdom Come, the people of my parish and I participated by creating a knotted prayer bracelet to touch and hold while we prayed for five people, with the aim that we individually and corporately as God’s church in Sonoma, we would

  • Deepen our relationships with Jesus Christ
  • Pray for God’s spirit to work in the lives of those we know
  • Come to realize that every aspect of our life is the stuff of prayer

I’ve pulled out the bracelet I made and wore last year and have begun, today, anew my prayers that the Holy Spirit continues to animate my life in ways that make known to my five loved ones especially, the good news of the kingdom come.

I’ve joined Thy Kingdom Come as an individual this year and am praying that you, too, might sign up to Pledge2Pray that the Holy Spirit might work in the lives of five people on your heart,

…to encounter Jesus in all His grace, challenge, and love, that they might say with St Paul, ‘For me to live is Christ’.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Daily Office Readings: Ascension Day: AM Psalm 8, 47; PM Psalm 24, 96
Ezek. 1:1-14,24-28b; Heb. 2:5-18; Matt. 28:16-20

[1] The Ascension is affirmed by the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds. The Ascension is celebrated on Ascension Day, the Thursday that is the fortieth day of the Easter season. It is a principal feast of the church year in the Episcopal Church. https://www.episcopalchurch.org/library/glossary/ascension-christ-or-ascension-day

 

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