9-28-18 - The Prayer of Faith

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

It’s Friday; let’s slip over to the Epistle reading from James, which flows nicely from yesterday’s reflection about the connection between forgiveness and healing. James offers a glimpse into the spiritual practices of his 1st century church:

Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.

Clearly, in this church people did not take illness lying down! Going from Jesus’ example, and that of the apostles who followed him, the early Christians lived in expectation that God’s healing would be poured out in their midst. There was order to it – people were to call for the “elders of the church,” leaders whose faith and maturity had been affirmed by the community. And these not only prayed – they anointed the sick with the oil of healing, which had perhaps been blessed by the bishop, as is our practice today.

James then makes a bold claim and an interesting connection:
The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.

We often see in Jesus’ healings a connection between repentance and healing. It stands to reason that unforgiven sin, either coming in or going out, can “clog up the works,” increase our stress and make us more vulnerable to illness or accident. By the same token, releasing our sins, forgiving others and accepting God’s forgiveness of us opens the channels so the river of God, the Holy Spirit, can flow more freely through us. What’s missing in our way of doing church is the practice of regular confession to one another, and prayer together. That’s one of the strengths of small prayer groups – we can be honest about who we are and real with one another, and mirror for each other God’s forgiving grace.

And let’s not miss the big promise here: The prayer of faith will save the sick. How do we interpret that when we don’t see healing 100 percent of the time? Jim Glennon, an Australian priest who had a powerful gift of healing (it’s stronger in some than in others) likened the prayer of faith to planting a seed. We invite God’s healing by faith, and though we can’t see how God is working, we give thanks with each sign of improvement. Even before we see any sign, we give thanks. “First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain,” he would say, quoting Jesus in Mark 4:28.

Where do you seek healing, for yourself or another? Can you find a “faith friend” to pray with?
Where is forgiveness blocked in you, either in or out? Can you pray with someone for release?

God’s forgiveness and God’s healing are promises. Sometimes the “saving” of the sick might include their death; our prayers, like seeds, are planted in mystery. I do know that the more forgiveness we release, the stronger our faith; and the more we pray for healing as a church, expectantly, the more blessing we see.

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9-27-18 - The Great Surgeon

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

How ironic to hear the man who healed the lame, the maimed, and the blind suggest people put themselves in such states. But here it is, one of the toughest of all of Jesus’ tough teachings:

“If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.”

It is a challenge to find Good News in this most “Grand Guignol” of Jesus’ sayings. This is a violent, if hyperbolic, wake-up call to be clear about our priorities, to be realistic about the consequences of sin – and to put God-Life first, no matter what. This teaching is short on grace and forgiveness, yet in its stark clarity it offers a kind of tough love we might employ in some circumstances.

Think, for instance, what we might say to an addict one bender away from losing her life. In such light, this language doesn’t look so harsh. Or an oncologist telling a patient his only hope is to cut out a tumor, even if that compromises healthy tissue. We wouldn’t think twice. Often we fail to connect sin with such dire consequences in our lives – surely we have time to shape up, ask forgiveness, we think; we can get straightened out tomorrow. One more day of gossip or petty lies or gluttony won’t make such a difference, right?

If we’re willing to take sin seriously, there are many more gentle measures we can take before it becomes a cancer in our lives, or a will-weakening addiction. We can adopt a practice of regular confession, not to wallow in our sins, but to shine the light of truth upon ourselves and recognize the often unseen effects of our sinful tendencies. The operative question in confession is not “what did I do,” but “who was hurt?” Usually we have been, often others, and always God.

We can practice forgiving others regularly, so we don’t let resentment and judgment build up. We can cultivate compassion, which helps us to look past the damage we do or endure, and pray for the wounded person behind the actions.

Are there patterns, habits, even people in your life whom you would do well to cut off, cut out, so that you can live in greater freedom and purpose? Are there parts of yourself that need to be cut away? I was once praying about an over-dependency, and got an image of this big, bloody, tuberous tumor in a chest cavity, attached by numerous blood vessels, which I had to let Jesus remove and heal. Yuck – and Alleluia.

Jesus speaks of entering life. This teaching is not about “getting into heaven" so much as being freed to live the God-Life already here and now. We can trust ourselves to the Great Physician, the surgeon who knows how to cut cleanly, the healer who knows how to apply balm to our wounds and restore us to wholeness.

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9-26-18 - Jesus Talks Tough

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Sunday’s gospel passage is really several different teachings put together – or it reads that way. How otherwise to account for the abrupt change in mood from Jesus’ generous teaching to his disciples about how to respond to people outside the faith community, to his stern warning against blocking children and rustics from believing in him?

“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.”

By “these little ones” he didn’t necessarily mean children. He was probably referring to simple folk, plain, uneducated, unimportant in the eyes of society’s leaders. Who would dream of putting “stumbling blocks” in the way of such people? Not, we hope, his disciples, though more than once we see them hushing beggars or lepers calling out for Jesus.

Perhaps Jesus was again targeting the religious leaders, Pharisees and scribes, whom he so often accused of laying burdens on people, making them feel they could never measure up to the demands of the Law, ignoring the breadth of God’s mercy. Any insistence of the “right way” to believe, to act, to think, to worship can serve as a stumbling block to someone who has not been raised that way, or has another way of celebrating the love of God.

Are we snared here? 

Are there people whose spiritual progress toward Christ we impede or simply don’t facilitate?
Do we celebrate belief in Christ wherever we find it, even if the packaging is different than ours?
Do we make sure we are not creating barriers in the way we organize ourselves or worship?
Are we out there building easy on-ramps to God by being open about our faith in Christ and the Good News?

Some people have a simple and natural faith in Jesus. I’m sure you can think of a few if you try. We need ask nothing of them but that they show us how to love our Lord so simply and so fully, for sometimes in our complexity we create stumbling blocks for ourselves.

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9-25-18 - Cups of Water

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel passage is here.)

Many major charities got their start as outreach missions of churches and other religious organizations. Many congregations once had extensive and active mission engagements in their communities and around the globe. Gradually, successful charities spun off to form tax-exempt and secular non-profits, becoming professionalized and often doing more efficiently what congregations struggled to do. Meanwhile, much church mission work has withered or shrunk as congregational numbers dwindled.

This comes to mind as I read what Jesus said to his disciples after they complained that someone outside their group was attempting to work miracles in his name: “Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.”

Many churches are increasingly isolated from their communities, as efforts to attract people to worship services meet with little success. And many people in today’s Western societies seem little interested in what institutional religion is selling. Where churches can connect is by inviting people to join them in transformational service. That offers a most natural way to share faith, working alongside people who are not part of our congregations, making space for them to bring “cups of water” to us and those with whom we work to address needs and change structures. From inviting people to help us serve meals in soup kitchens to promoting things like gun violence prevention, there are many access points that might appeal to the un- or de-churched.

And if a congregation is too small to effectively field an outreach project (after all, congregations are not social work agencies; they are meant to be engines for transformation – personal, societal and global), they can partner with another congregation or a non-profit, which might be delighted to have a cadre of willing and compassionate volunteers come alongside. And then relationships can form in that work.

What works of service or advocacy are you involved in? Who from beyond your congregation might you invite to join you? How might you lift up the gifts of such people, making them full partners in your work? How might you communicate that your commitment to this work is rooted in your relationship with Christ, that you work in his name?

What organizations around you are doing great work, with whom you might partner? For instance, one of my parishes has a state-of-the-art commercial kitchen and a keen interest in food ministries. We’ve talked about offering courses in cooking healthy and economical meals to people who receive food from the food bank or food stamps. We’re a very small group –but the regional food council has said they can provide instructors any time we ask. We can partner with them and build relationships all around. Win/win!

Put another way: Who around us is offering us cups of water because we bear the name of Christ, affirming our work and our commitments? By all means, let’s take the water and drink it, and build on the friendship from there. We know a little something about the water of life.

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9-24-18 - Interfaith Gospel?

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

During my time in Stamford, Connecticut, I was deeply involved in interfaith ministry, leading a regional interfaith council and organizing interfaith worship in times of crisis or remembrance. I haven’t found much religious diversity in Southern Maryland, though there is a Muslim masjid worshipping a block from my church in La Plata. In my experience, people of other faiths often take God more seriously than do many nominal Christians. Many even recognize the power of Jesus, and live according to the values of God’s Kingdom, even if they don’t acknowledge him as the Son of God. Evidently this is not a new phenomenon:

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us.

That’s a far cry from “whoever is not for us is against us,” which is the kind of rhetoric you hear from those who claim that “Christianity is under attack in this country." Jesus makes a radically open statement here – that those who honor him, even if they have not made the choice (or been offered the choice…) to follow him as Lord, are to be honored as allies and co-laborers.

I have a Muslim friend with a powerful ministry of healing prayer. How could that be, I thought - isn't Christ the one who heals? And maybe He is healing through the prayers of this very faithful, very humble, very devout Muslim, who reveres Issa as a prophet if not as divine. I have a Jewish friend who loves to worship Y'shua. I have Sikh friends steeped in peaceful anti-violence work, and Baha’I friends who offer hospitality beyond measure. In a time when some highly visible Christians in our country vocally support fear-mongering, hatred, racism, discrimination, violence, misogyny, xenophobia and a bias against the poor, we need to look beyond labels to words and actions.

I am not saying there is no distinction between religious traditions – I don’t subscribe to the “all religions are the same” view. As a committed follower of Christ, I believe he is Lord, Messiah, Redeemer, the Way, the Truth and the Life. I seek to introduce people in my life to this Lord who is the source of peace, power, presence and purpose for me. I am saying that there is goodness and love in many of the world’s religious traditions – and that God may just be bigger than the categories in which we try to contain him. Big enough even to work through people who don’t know Jesus as Lord, but work in his name.

Who do you know like that? How can you support their ministries? 

How might you build relationships with them?

If people are to see something of value in the Way of following Christ, it will be because we park our judgmentalism and start celebrating love wherever we find it. Then we will present the Way of Love as Jesus lived it – and so perhaps introduce more people to him as Lord.

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9-21-18 - Welcoming God

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

More than once, Jesus tells his followers that how they treat the vulnerable directly reflects their relationship to him. In Matthew 25, it’s the hungry, naked, sick, imprisoned and the stranger. In our gospel passage this week, it is the child, the child with nothing obvious to offer, who is raw potential.

What does it mean to welcome God in a child? It means to welcome joy and wonder, unpredictability, rule-breaking – or rule re-interpreting. It means to welcome the instinctual along with the intellectual, the emotional in concert with the organizational. It means welcoming a whole person, mind, body and spirit, just as she is, not yet fully formed but a worthy representation of the living God.

The disciples thought God was best represented in the one who could be considered greatest among them, so they used human metrics to determine who that might be. Wrong, wrong, wrong, says Jesus. The one who might be considered greatest is the one who is willing to be the most vulnerable.

What does it mean to welcome God in the vulnerable and marginalized? It goes way beyond meeting their material needs; that’s too low a bar for Christ-followers. It means engaging them as full persons, as equals, according them the same dignity as we would God or someone we consider important. It means seeking out their gifts and assets and making space for them to give to us. It means risking vulnerability ourselves by entering into relationship, not the uneven power relationship of giver to recipient, but a relationship of equals, strangers who might become friends.

Perhaps the best known example of that in our day is Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who said she met Christ in the lepers and outcasts whom she nursed and loved. Lepers and outcasts come in all shapes and sizes – some even have sizable bank accounts. It isn’t for us to determine worthiness. We just need to decide to be about the ministry of welcoming God.

What would it feel like if we went through our days not looking for God so much as looking to see where we might welcome God into our lives? “Who will God show up in today?” is a question we could ask each morning. “In whom did I welcome God?” we might ask at the close of day.

Just to ask that question will open us up. And then we are more likely to be one through whom God is revealed to another. And then we’ll know what it’s like to be welcomed in Jesus’ name.

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9-20-18 - The Holy Child

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

What a photo op: Jesus picks up a small child to illustrate his point about humility and servanthood:
He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

We find this moment sweet, because in our culture we accord children great status. Not so much in Jesus’ time, when children were viewed as among the last – maybe ahead of slaves, but valued largely for the labor they would one day perform for the household. (Mark can’t even be bothered to record this child’s gender.)

For Jesus to equate welcoming a child with welcoming him was radical, not sentimental. And he is more subversive still – for he implicitly links welcoming the child to welcoming God the Father. God Almighty represented by a powerless, status-less child? What kind of God is this?

Perhaps the kind of God who would send his son into human life as a helpless infant, at the mercy of forces political, historical and familial. The kind of God who demonstrated his power in vulnerability, who allowed that son to die the death of the “last," naked, nailed to a cross, as powerless as can be. This is not the first time in the Jesus story that welcoming a child meant welcoming God. His parents, the shepherds, the magi – they did it first.

In what ways are we called to welcome children in the name of Jesus? We do it by giving them dignity and respect in our worshiping communities, making room for their voices and wisdom (and artwork!). We welcome them by spending time getting to know them as people, not just adults-in-training, but already saints of God with gifts for the rest of us.

And we are called to welcome children in Jesus’ name outside our congregations too. We are called to place such value on children that we happily provide tax monies for their education, and support laws to keep them safe from harm. We come to regard every child in every country on this earth as precious and worthy of food, water, housing and education - and security. It makes no sense to champion the rights of the unborn only to neglect them once they're here.

Another “photo op”: The body of a small Syrian boy washed up on a beach, so still he could be sleeping. But he was dead, drowned, the victim of global conflicts and policies. That picture of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi broke hearts and broke open borders, forcing the world to deal with the magnitude of its migration crisis. We are still figuring it out, and have even gone backward. But something did change. That dead child made a global crisis human.

Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me." We cannot turn away.

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9-19-18 - Holy Doormats?

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

We all know people like this – some of us have been people like this: people who jump up to fetch anything anyone might need, who are always asking, “Are you okay? Can I get you anything?,” who put aside their lives and careers to care for children or infirm parents, who show up at events even when they’re tired. As a culture, we’re ambivalent about such folks – sometimes we say, “What a saint!” and other times, “How co-dependent is she!”

Some of Jesus' teaching can sound like we are to be holy doormats, laying aside our own agenda, never seeking to be in charge, always serving. For instance, when he heard his disciples arguing about who is the greatest, "He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, 'Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.'”

Does Christian humility demand that we sacrifice our dreams and passions? Or does being a servant of all require rather that we be true to who God made us to be? We cannot empty ourselves if we are not full of ourselves.

To be “full of oneself” in our culture is to be conceited, self-promoting. But such an orientation comes from a place of insecurity, a heart that is empty, a self that is not quite full. A healthy person knows who she or he is, faults and blind spots, strengths and gifts. Only as we truly own the fullness of who God made us to be can we empty ourselves for the sake of God’s mission. After all, Jesus did not pour himself out from stocks that were running low; he poured himself out from the fullness of his humanity and divinity.

Those who want to excel as disciples of Jesus Christ are called to serve the world in his name. If part of your charism is to be a leader, are you able to lead as a servant?
How does serving others sit with you? Is it comfortable? Challenging? Too familiar? Demeaning?

If service is your default position, make sure your giving is in balance with your being nourished by God and the community. If serving others is uncomfortable, practice. Go serve a meal at a shelter or soup kitchen. Make a point of making coffee at the office – or making copies!

First or last, we are never alone in our serving. We serve alongside the One who had everything and gave it all in service to an ungrateful world. He can show us how to be servants of all with dignity and grace. 

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9-18-18 - Jockeying for Position

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Squabbling in the car on an endless road trip. That’s what I think of when I hear this week’s gospel reading, and Jesus’ questioning of his disciples:

Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.

There is something about journeying that can foster tension – and when your leader has just announced that at some point he will be arrested, tried and executed, that tension will go through the roof. Afraid to ask Jesus what on earth he was talking about, his disciples instead turned on each other, discussing who was greater than the next. Vying for top spot, they little realized that the more visible they were as leaders in Jesus’ community, the more vulnerable they would be.

Jockeying for position is something humans tend to do when we are insecure about where we are. Sure, some ruthlessly ambitious people are always looking for an angle to get ahead, but most of us stay pretty content until the ground starts to shift. Then it suddenly matters how we’re perceived and where we’re received. We begin to compare ourselves to others around us, to measure ourselves against not our own standards, or God’s, but those of others.

As Christ-followers, we don't have to do that. One of the great gifts that comes with membership in the family of God is freedom from having to position ourselves. In a community in which no one has more value than anyone else, no matter what our level of accomplishment or productivity, we don’t have to compete for attention or reward. If God already loves us the most, and is already as delighted with us as God could possibly be, why worry about being seen as worthy or getting ahead of other people?

Of course, many of us still do, because we’re human and it takes a long time for the knowledge of God’s unmerited and limitless grace to replace the messages of competition and progress we ingest from family, school and workplace. It doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves daily of our infinite worth in the eyes of the Infinite Being. Or to remind each other. Who might you remind today, “God already loves you the most – you don’t need to prove anything.”

Had Jesus’ disciples grasped that sooner, they would have had a different experience of being with him. They got it eventually - and so, God willing, will we.

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9-17-18 - Afraid To Ask

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

You know that awful feeling when you sense something is wrong, and you don’t know what it is, and worry that even asking about it might make it worse? We try to suppress that anxiety, afraid to find out what’s actually going on.

That’s how Jesus’ disciples felt as he continued to speak of the harsh treatment he was going to encounter:  They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

It’s not that Jesus was unclear – he says this at least three times as they journey on. But his words make no sense to his followers. He is the Messiah, the Deliverer, in whom they’ve witnessed unimaginable power. It is unthinkable that their Jesus, so sought after by the rich and influential as well as the poor and marginalized, could be betrayed. And that he could be killed, he who held the power of God in his hands, who could command storms to be stilled and blind eyes to see? How could that be? And what is this he says about rising again? I suspect that made so little sense they hardly heard it. His words are so unsettling in every way, they were afraid to ask him to explain what he is talking about.

We too, so long after the fact, left with a story we celebrate but can’t fully comprehend, or even always see as good news, can find it hard to ask God about it. We might fear finding ourselves adrift in a sea of doubt, or losing our faith entirely. So we hold it at arm’s length, celebrating the high points, acknowledging the cross and empty tomb, but not wandering too close to the sometimes inconsistent details.

I believe Jesus yearns for us to wander close, just as I suspect he wished his disciples had asked him directly what he meant. Asking God to help make sense of what makes no sense is central to a living faith. It is how we deepen our relationship with God.

What are your biggest questions about the Christian story and beliefs? Have you asked those in prayer? Hard questions, like, “Jesus, why did you have to die? Why would a God of love require your sacrifice?” Ask, and listen for an answer. A thought might pop into your head, or over the next few weeks you might find yourself encountering a response.

Perhaps your biggest fearful questions have to do with your own life. A retreat leader once rattled me with this profound question, “What are you trying notto know?” What knowledge are you trying to suppress? What worries are lurking just below your surface, troubling the waters, holding you back from living the fullness of life in faith?

Freedom comes as we surface the hard questions and open ourselves to exploring the answers. We draw closer to the God of mystery in the asking. In the end, that may be the only answer we really need.

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9-14-18 - Worded

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

The apostle James, whoever he may have been (tradition attributes the New Testament treatise to James, Jesus’ brother by blood, acknowledged as the leader of “church HQ” in Jerusalem), was a harsh critic but a superb diagnostician of the human condition. In the section of his epistle we will hear this Sunday, he talks about the amazing power in what is one of our smallest muscles, the tongue.

So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 

He is not wrong – our tongues are often our most unruly and ungovernable faculty. Who hasn’t spoken words they wished they could take back? Who hasn’t unleashed unhappy dramas by words spoken in haste or in anger or in self-pity or aggression? Words can incite wars, divorce, addiction.

As Christians, we claim that a Word incited creation. Sure, this language reflects the influence of Greek philosophy on the writer of John’s Gospel, but John’s use of the word “Logos” conveys an important mystery about God: that all creation is God-breathed, the material expression of the thought of God conveyed in the Word of God. We can say that God “worded” creation into being.

And then there is this intriguing word Logizomai, used in the New Testament to speak of our having been justified, made righteous in Christ. This word, which means “reckoned,” “considered,” “regarded as,” also has in its root “logos,” or thought/word. Through Christ we are reckoned as righteous, not by our own merits, but by his. We have been “worded” holy by God, and we are to accept this reckoning by faith.

God’s Word created us, and God’s Word has saved us. How might the way we use our words reflect our status as saints made in God’s image and redeemed by God’s Word? Learning to tame our tongues, to listen more than we speak, is as difficult as thinking before we speak. There is such a fast connection between thought and speech, “taming” may be too strong a term. But we can learn to put a breath or two between thought and word so that we frame our words in the positive rather than the negative. We can train ourselves to choose our words to bless. As James writes about the tongue, "With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so."

Even chastisement can be offered with words of blessing, affirming the goodness of God’s creation and inviting a person into behavior that reflects their true selves. Few things build up a person like words of affirmation for who they are, apart from what they do.

Let’s start to notice, after we speak, the tenor of our words. Did we build up or take down? Bless or curse? We can practice on ourselves – if we speak more generously to ourselves, we might find ourselves blessing others more.

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9-13-18 - Thinking Like God

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

When Jesus tells his followers the horrors that are to befall the “Son of Man,” Peter takes him aside and admonishes him. “Don’t be talking like that! How can anything bad happen to you? Haven’t I just said that you’re the Messiah?”

And Jesus in turn rebukes Peter, quite harshly, telling him:
“You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Jesus was asking a lot, that Peter think in divine terms. Yet that neatly describes the task of discipleship: learning to think like God. Paul writes that those who would follow Jesus “Have the mind of Christ.” This makes sense – if we are united with Christ in baptism, if he takes up residence in us, as it were, through the presence of the Holy Spirit, then we have his mind as well, not replacing our own minds, but informing, even transforming them.

Our minds and capacity for thought are among God’s greatest gifts to us, and also the seat of our strongest resistance to God. Funny how that is… Before we can set our mind on the things of God we have to become conscious of the distinction between our own thoughts and God’s thoughts. Whenever we become aware that we are thinking solely out of our own reality – say, when anxiety or anger are leading the way, or when we're convinced faith is irrational, or when we’re set on a course of action that we know is other than the way God would work in us – we can ask God to show us situations or people as God sees them. Often a broader perspective opens immediately.

Today, try to notice when your thoughts are purely human, and when they seem tinged with the holy. As with any spiritual practice, this is a way of life we can cultivate; as we become conscious, we begin to think more like God.

It is a delicate balance to prize the gift of human nature and yet allow God’s life to grow in us and uproot everything that is not of God. Perhaps this is best summed up in the old adage, “God loves us just the way we are – and far too much to leave us that way.”

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9-12-18 - Suffering

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

Does God want us to suffer? There is a strand in the Christian tradition that looks at the suffering Jesus underwent – which he predicted – and suggests that it is in suffering that we draw closest to our Lord. This is not how Peter saw things:

Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

Just before this, Peter has identified Jesus as the Messiah, the Anointed One of God long foretold, who would come to redeem the people of Israel – redeem, as in buy back a pawned item so it can be restored to its true purpose. It was assumed that the Messiah would bring to an end the suffering and humiliation of God’s chosen people. What good is a Messiah who’s going to suffer and die himself?

Jesus is firm: But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

It appears that Jesus sees in Peter’s words a temptation to veer from the mission he is living out, a temptation to doubt his discernment of what is ahead for him. In Jesus’ case, suffering was part of his mission; his mission of redeeming humanity would involve a humiliating and horrible death.

That is not our mission. The ways in which God might invite us to make God-Life known in the world may not include suffering in any obvious way. We may be called to write or to feed or to proclaim or to organize, and never be persecuted for our faith. Yet there will be pain, if we’re open to letting our hearts be broken by God’s love for this world. In that sense, every ministry, every life involves suffering.

Our God does not inflict suffering upon us, though our God of free will does allow it to happen. And our God who is Love is always with us in it, and our God who is Life can bring transformation through it. Sometimes I wonder how that message falls on the ears of people in obvious pain, like those in nursing homes, some of them quite young, to whom I occasionally preach. Am I right when I proclaim that God is with us in our suffering, and that God can work through it? I may doubt myself, but every time I ask a person whom I visit in a pastoral capacity if she feels the presence of God with her, the answer is usually an unequivocal yes.

It is through Christ's presence with us that we gain the Life that overcomes death, the Life we can share with others, no matter what our condition. God does not visit suffering upon us so we can draw near to Christ. But I believe with all my heart that Christ draws near to us as we suffer, and helps break us open so new life can emerge from the dark.

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9-11-18 - The One and Only

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

A healthy sense of self-worth does not rest on what other people think of us. Jesus did not act or speak like he cared what other people said about him. Yet a wise public figure will check his polls every now and then. So we find Jesus asking his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’

They answer readily; someone as powerful and unusual as Jesus would surely generate debate, even an assumption that he carried the spirit of a luminary from the distant or recent past: And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’

This reminds me of entertainment writers who compare up and coming stars to those of old. “She’s the new Meryl Streep,” He’s the new Springsteen,” as though the only way to apprehend someone is to categorize them in relation to someone else. Jesus was frequently asked if he was John the Baptist returned to life. To ask that question was to miss the reality of the man standing right in front of them.

Jesus thought his closer followers might have a different perspective. 

He asked, ‘But who do you say that I am?’

How do you answer that question? It can be as hard for us to see Jesus for who he intrinsically is, apart from what we’ve heard about him through church, history, familial and cultural assumptions, as it was for people in his day to see him apart from the great prophets of old and their own expectations in a time of national powerlessness. The only way we can truly answer that question is to seek to know Jesus as he is revealed in the Gospels, as we see his power at work through his church, and as we experience him personally in prayer.

Which also means that, if we’re active in study, action and prayer, our answer will evolve. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever– but our discernment of who he is not fixed, not until that day when we see no longer “through a glass, dimly,” but face to face. In the meantime, we can read through the gospels for clues about who this Jesus guy is. We can pray to be aware of him in worship and the ministries of those who gather around his Word and Life. And we can invite him to make himself known to us in our listening prayer times and seek actual conversation with him in our imaginations, as the Holy Spirit leads us.

Peter's answer reflected Israel’s history, the promise of future redemption, and the knowledge of Jesus Peter gained in relationship with him: Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ In naming him as the promised One of God, Peter also claimed Jesus as one-of-kind, not the “new” anyone, but new creation.

So we too, made in the image of God as unique persons, can get to know Jesus, the Lord who was, and is and is to come - and so discover the new creations we are in Him.

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9-10-18 - Back to the Real World?

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

If you’re having some trouble transitioning into the fall schedule from the ease of summer, Sunday’s gospel reading should help you come down with a bump. Jesus tells his followers that they have signed on for tough duty:

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

I don’t know if summertime is akin to “gaining the whole world,” but I tend to see it as a time of lower responsibility, slower engagement with tasks and intentions, loosening up on self-denial. Maybe you’re one of those marvelous saints who went on incredible mission trips this summer, but I fear I got so good at living the good life on my creek, I won’t remember where I left my cross to take it up again.

Is that what the “program year” is about, taking up our cross? In some measure, yes. We dial down the lazy, and quicken the pace of our days. We reengage the world more fully. We recommit ourselves to discerning what the Holy Spirit is up to around us, and join in as we are led to participate in the mission of God to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness in Christ. None of that may involve putting our physical lives at risk, but it does entail putting God’s work and the world's needs ahead of our own comfort - while maintaining some healthy balance. I have recommitted myself to a sabbath day once a week, a full day with no "shoulds." I found my first one a little dull, but I'll work my way back into this life-giving practice.

Today, let’s spend some time in the presence of God and ask where we’re being directed to share our energies and gifts and resources this season. Any ideas percolating in you?

As we sharpen our attention, we are still called to live in the moment, only perhaps to indwell it more fully. We let our lives be filled with the Spirit’s energy and live for the sake of the gospel rather than for ourselves. We dwell in the Realm of God – which is the most real world there can possibly be.

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9-7-18 - Skin In the Game

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Once more, we’ll end the week by swinging over to the epistle reading and see what James has to say to us this Sunday. As usual, he does not mince words, stressing the “social action” aspects of being a Christ-follower, not merely the spiritual. In fact, he says faith with no visible outcome in ministries toward the poor and marginalized is worth little:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

He has been lambasting his readers for their tendency to favor the wealthy and well-put-together over the poor and raggedy, reminding them that the troubles they’ve faced have come from those with wealth, not from the poor. He is saying their solidarity should be with the economically challenged – a message many Christians could stand to ingest today, as we watch the wealth gap grow ever wider. Close to 40% of our nation’s wealth is now held by the richest 1 % of its citizens, most of whom pass it along to their relatives. It is estimated that the bottom 90% of Americans hold almost 75% of all debt. That translates into an ever increasing number of people and families in need. (More tax relief for the wealthy, anyone? How about that opioid crisis?)

James exhorts us to follow the “royal law,” and love your neighbor as yourself. He says that those who show partiality to the well-off are breaking God's law, and if you’ve broken one law, you may as well have broken them all. This tracks with Jesus’ teaching on justice and generosity and money.

But James’ intent is not to generate guilt. He wants to get us moving. “Faith without works is dead.” He says it does no good to lament poverty, or hope the hungry can find a meal, and not do something to provide one. James wants those who call themselves Christ-followers to actually follow Christ’s example, and teaching, and self-giving.

Of course, there is always the “how.” In a world of such tremendous need, where do we start? That questions is enough to paralyze some. But this world of tremendous need is also a world of tremendous resources. We control some resources, we have access to others, and we have the power of persuasion and creativity to create pathways for others to share what they have. We don't have to meet every need; we can also help transform structures to eliminate the need.

The “how” will always be particular. What is universal, and non-negotiable, is that we be active in seeking justice and equity. God took on human flesh in Christ to redeem the world; God still takes on human flesh – ours – to bring to fullness that work. We may have our hearts in the heavens, but we need to put our flesh on the line, our skin in the game, if we truly want to consider ourselves followers of the penniless King, our savior Jesus Christ. And he said, "Feed my sheep."

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9-6-18 - Be Opened

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

The story of Jesus healing a man who can neither hear nor speak has great power in itself. Yet I discern in this tale an allegory to which we might also attend. It seems to me that the man who is deaf and mute could represent the church of our day, which can be deaf to the promptings of the Spirit and impeded in communicating the Good News about Jesus to our surrounding communities.

How does it alter our understanding of this story if we put our churches in the place of the man? Let’s look at the nature of this healing. Where sometimes Jesus heals with a word, not even in the same physical location as the one healed, in this case he is intensely personal and material. He uses his own saliva, placed on the man's tongue, and puts his fingers in his ears. Beyond the "ick" factor, we see here an incredible intimacy. Perhaps many of our churches, and those who work so hard to sustain them, have forsaken intimacy with Christ for the burden of keeping his church lumbering on. That has ever been a bad trade!

How might we come closer to Jesus again, close enough to touch his wounds, and allow him close enough to touch our ears and our tongues? How might we take to heart his command, "Be opened!" and recover the impulse toward joyful faith-sharing that is in our DNA as followers of Christ?

Where do you feel your spiritual hearing might be stopped up? In what ways do you feel impeded in talking about your life in God? Obstacles don’t have to stop us – they invite us to look for ways over, under, around or through them.

Today as a prayer experiment, read this story again and put yourself in the place of the man who is deaf and mute. Let the story unfold in your imagination. Does Jesus say or do anything different with you? Anything specific?

Now imagine this whole encounter with your faith community standing in for the man – how does Jesus proceed in your imagination?

If it wasn't impossible to pronounce, "Ephphatha!" would be a great name for a church. I pray we can live into the heart of this command, and truly, in every possible way, be opened.

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9-5-18 - A Different Healing

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

This week’s gospel passage contains two great healing stories – the first, about the Syro-Phoenician woman, and a second, about Jesus healing a man who is both deaf and mute.

They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

This healing is unique in several ways. First, Jesus healed the man in private. He doesn’t usually do that; in fact, some quite intimate healings happen in full view of a whole crowd. Perhaps the reason Jesus takes the man aside is related to the other distinctive feature of this healing – Jesus is unusually hands-on, even invasive. Jesus’ spiritual power is so great he can command a healing from afar. He need only speak healing and people are made whole. Why does he put his fingers in this man’s ears and touch his tongue with his own spittle before speaking a word of healing?

We can’t know the answer to that question, but it invites us to imagine. There is something powerful about Jesus using his physical life to bring healing to another – it reminds us that God does not eschew the material, fleshly world, but uses it for the purpose of redemption. That story is writ large in Jesus’ incarnation, of course, but we find it told in small ways throughout the gospels. The God come in human flesh uses his bodily existence to reveal the spiritual power of God. How amazing is that?!

And that God-Man coming so close to someone who is suffering, willing to put his fingers in another’s ears, and to touch his tongue with his own spit – that shows a God who wants to come close to us, who does not shy away from our infirmities but gives of himself to heal us. What wounds are you trying to hide from God, afraid he doesn’t want to know about them, or can't help? Can we invite Jesus that close?

There is another unique element to this healing – Jesus’ looking up to heaven and sighing, and then speaking the command to the man’s ears and voice: “Be opened.” A similar sequence is reported when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead – maybe the sighing bespeaks an inner effort to transmit this greater reality of God-Life into what we think of as reality. And he speaks the healing; he pronounces it into being, the way God “spoke” the world into being – “in the beginning was the Word.”

We too are invited to speak into being God’s transforming word. That is active prayer, prayer of faith that takes God up on God’s promises of spiritual authority over the material world. Paul writes in Romans 4:17 about, “the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.” Calling into being things that are not yet is what we are about. We don’t get to dictate God’s action, but we can direct God’s power and love into people and situations in need of transformation, as Jesus did with that man.

Prayer is bringing spiritual power to bear on physical situations. We can do that, right?

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9-4-18 - Who's Under Your Table?

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

There are few expressions of humility in the Bible more beautiful than the response of the Syro-Phoenician mother when Jesus denies her request that he heal her daughter, saying, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 

But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’

Jesus’ words sound harsh and unfeeling, no matter how we try to interpret them. In Matthew's version of this story the woman is identified as “Canaanite,” still obviously a Gentile. And Jesus gives a fuller reason for not helping her:  “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” By these lights, he is just staying “on mission.” His own people and target audience are “the children,” and outsiders are “dogs.”

Where is the Jesus who heals a Roman centurion’s servant, who frees a man in Gentile territory of a legion of demons, who stays for two days among Samaritans and holds up those disdained relatives of the Jews – though not regarded as Gentiles – as models of compassionate service?

Well, we’ll see him in a few minutes, when he fully digests this woman’s breathtakingly faithful reply: “Even the dogs under the table eat crumbs that fall from the table.”

She knows that his “crumbs” hold power enough to heal her little girl, and she doesn’t care where she gets them or for whom they were intended. Her faith gets through to him, and he pronounces her daughter free and healed. 

This story invites us to stay tuned to discern faith in people outside what we recognize as the community of faith. Those of us who are longtime churchgoers and deeply steeped in our religious tradition don’t always see that the woman with the angel pins, or the multiply "tatted" guy at the shelter may have a clearer, less complicated, more powerful faith than we do. And some people who’ve never belonged to a church, or have heard the gospel only in its cultural iterations, might find it much easier than we to trust God.

It’s worth asking ourselves, who do we consider the “children,” and who do we regard as “dogs under the table?” Who is under your table? Many of our churches offer feasts that precious few people partake in, while at our margins there are many who would love to receive our “crumbs” of true faith, of loving community, of the power of God’s Spirit, of access to God in Christ. How do we make the invitation to those people who look and act so different from us?

Jesus always commended faith where he found it, telling people “Your faith has made you whole.” As we recognize faith where we find it, we can make it our mission to invite those “outsiders” to become part of our community, to draw nearer to Christ. We may just find that it is they who make Christ known to us once again.

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9-3-18 - Cranky Jesus?

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Any who doubt the full humanity of Christ need look no further than the 7th chapter of Mark's gospel. In the story we have this week, we meet a Jesus who appears out of sorts, brusque to the point of rudeness - and of changeable mind.

Jesus has come to this place to get away from the crowds and incessant demand for his attention and power. He needs a break. Mark tells us, “He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.” And this woman, a Gentile yet, finds him and has the temerity to intrude upon his solitude, demanding deliverance for her daughter. At first he dismisses her, curtly saying she is outside his assigned mission, and then he likens her to a dog seeking scraps.

She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ Then he said, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

As she steadily insists, refusing to take offense, he detects something beneath the annoyance he feels. He discerns a woman of real faith, who will not take "no" for an answer because she knows with all her heart that Jesus can heal her little girl. This is the kind of faith he has hoped to see among his own Jewish followers – but familiarity can cloud our faith vision. This Gentile woman has no such blinders. She can see, and once Jesus' own blinders fall, he sees her truly as well, and rewards her faith.

This story contains several invitations for us. One is to be persistent in prayer, with faith, even when it seems God does not answer, or we can’t accept the “no” we discern. Prayer is about deepening our relationship with God, not "getting what we need," so we can pester and cajole and ask nicely and cry our need. Jesus hears us, and adds his perfect faith to ours, as we learn to trust his perfect will and timing.

Are there things in your life which you desire from the bottom of your heart? Areas of desperation or despair? Bring them to Jesus, even if you don't think he’s listening. Pray with the kind of humility this woman showed, not demanding from a place of entitlement, but inviting God to release the power you know God has. We still may not see that healing or answer we so powerfully desire – but I believe we will experience healing ourselves, and be strengthened as we exercise more faith.

This woman’s need was simple and clear; the things we pray for often are not. So we pray into them, inviting God to show us the need beneath the need. As we pray, we can grow in trust, so that we are able to align our wills with God’s will. Then prayer really becomes a breeze.

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