6-28-19 - Walk and Don't Look Back

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

Jesus was in a tough mood the day he was vetting would-be disciples. He did not want folks running home to bury their dead ; he didn’t even want them going back to say goodbye before they threw in their lot with him:

Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

That’s a hard word for me, having lived a life with many moves, all accompanied by amazing goodbye parties. It's time to leave when folks say, “Oh, are you still here?” Then you’ve said enough goodbyes. Am I unfit for the Kingdom?

As with everything else in the Scriptures, we need to hold this statement in tension with other things Jesus is recorded as having said and done. I pray there is more than one pattern of becoming a disciple. And if we take ourselves off the” judgment hook” this statement can generate, we might better discern the good news it offers. We all recognize the tendency to want to look back; where do we find life in not giving in to that impulse?

For me, it comes back to this: that the life of God is always forward, always ahead of us on the road. What has been is real and important and shapes where we are now, but we do not need to look back to the last place we encountered God. We are to trust that these encounters will multiply as we follow Jesus – as we spend time with him in prayer; learn from him in scripture; work with him in apostolic action. The more we move forward, the less we need to look back.

And what about those goodbyes? Don’t they need to be said? Perhaps – and maybe we are invited to trust that we will encounter those beloveds again in different ways. Maybe we don’t need to spend a lot of energy on goodbyes, because in God’s economy we remain connected in spirit to those whom we love, even when we’re not with them in body.

Earlier this week we heard from the Shirelles and U2. Today, let’s give the last word to Peter Tosh and Mick Jagger (also frighteningly young in this video) doing “Don’t Look Back.” This song was NOT about following Jesus, but let’s just focus on the chorus, on the walking and not looking back part. God will take care of what’s behind us as we look forward.

So if you just put your hand in mine,
We’re gonna leave all our troubles behind;
We gonna walk and don’t look back. Amen!

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6-27-19 - The Walking Dead

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

I’ve performed a good number of funerals, but have never heard this text read at one: To another Jesus said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 

Sound a bit harsh? Isn’t it normal, a way of honoring your father and your mother, to give them a proper burial? What kind of child would say, “Sorry – too busy,” to such a life moment? Well, maybe Jesus would answer, “The kind of child who sees himself first as a child of God. The kind of child who knows she is my follower first, and puts every other relationship second.” Does this sound like a cult? Perhaps many of the families of those who left everything to follow Jesus did think they’d joined a cult. No one knew this cult would last 2,000 years and turn the world upside down.

What did Jesus mean by “Let the dead bury their own dead?” He meant that those who have been born anew in the Spirit are the living, and those who operate only out of their human, natural, “fleshly” life are as good as dead. (Perhaps he would also suggest that the energy and resources we put into tending and laying to rest the bodies of our loved ones after they have ceased to inhabit them is a misplaced priority for people who are called to proclaim life…)

Jesus was always redefining family values. Over and over he taught that the company of those who believe in him are the first family for his followers. Our primary job as followers of Christ is to reveal the kingdom of God – the realm of God-Life. In the course of doing that we live in relationships with the people around us, including our families of origin, but we are not to value them more highly than we do our families of faith. And when our biological families distract from our discipleship, or worse become active obstacles to following in the Way of Jesus, we are to love them but put Jesus first.

What reaction does this remark of Jesus’ provoke in you? 

Would it make you want to turn away and not follow him? 

Where might we see the life in his invitation to put our family of faith first?

It’s not all or nothing (at least I hope not!). I believe that as we claim the Life of God already given to us we become not the walking dead but the walking living. And as we get about the business of proclaiming that Life of God unleashed in this world, as we experience it, our priorities become quite naturally reordered. Love is love.

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6-26-19 - Following Or Staying Put?

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Whether it is the Shirelles (or in this video, Little Peggy March) singing “I Will Follow Him,” or Bono and U2 (appallingly young here) doing “I Will Follow," we have a rich soundtrack for this week's gospel story. When our hearts are full of love for someone, it is natural to proclaim our ever-lasting allegiance and intention to be with them wherever they go. Ask Dead Heads, ParrotHeads, and other rabid fans.

So it was one day as Jesus walked with his followers toward Jerusalem; even strangers got caught up in it:  As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Jesus was saying, “You want to follow me, it comes at a cost. Things won’t be comfortable or predictable or stable. Wild creatures will have more security than you will.” In the gospels we see Jesus living a very peripatetic life, always on the move. We hear about his being “at home in Capernaum,” but he doesn’t seem to have spent much time there.

American Christianity has not followed this “I will follow you wherever you go” pattern. Other than traveling evangelists (often suspect characters in books and movies...), we prefer to do our following inwardly, quietly, spiritually, staying rooted to place and community. I am a staying put type myself, and even when I move, I seek security and stability. Does this compromise me as a disciple? Am I a lesser, “I will follow, as long as I know where I’m going to sleep?" kind of Christian? Or is there a legitimate good in being rooted in community, in our neighborhoods?

Both/And, of course… God blesses us with homes and work, families and communities, and a rich web of relationships. And God invites us to hold these blessings lightly, to keep our focus more on the Giver than on the gifts – and to be prepared to let them go, trade them in, keep our hands open to new blessings. It can be a difficult balancing act, but it keeps us better connected to God, nimble and ready to pivot when the Spirit calls us to bring our gifts to some new thing God is doing. And God is always doing a new thing.

The lyrics to U2’s I Will Follow are in part about Bono’s loss of his mother at a young age, but there is also unmistakably religious language – “I was blind, I could not see…” “I was lost, I am found,” that suggests the band – deeply enmeshed in Christian life at the time – had broader themes in mind. Jesus invites us away from our sorrows and stucknesses, away from our self-saving strategies and sources of security to walk with him through this world, seeing it through his eyes. Sometimes that’s on the move, sometimes it’s being still. Always it is being open to grace.

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6-25-19 - Fire From Heaven

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

Many Christians of my “brand” – mainline Protestant, progressive – are horrified at the violent rhetoric we hear from more conservative church circles, particularly the alignment of many American evangelicals with gun culture.* The language of vengeance and violence, though present in Old Testament texts, runs counter to the Good News proclaimed and lived by Jesus Christ. Yet not even his disciples were strangers to that flame-throwing impulse.

On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village. 

James and John are being hyperbolic – there are no recorded instances of fire from heaven consuming the wicked, though the prophet Elijah did a number with fire on a wet altar, after which he had 400 enemy prophets slaughtered (yeah, it’s in the book). Maybe their anti-Samaritan ire was kindled; maybe they were juiced by the power they saw in Jesus and beginning to exercise themselves. Whatever their motives, I am more interested in Jesus’ response: “No. Let’s move on.”

When our message or our ministry is rejected, it is tempting to get angry at the very people we hoped to bless. Such feelings are human. But when we act on them, we depart from the way of Jesus. He was clear in his instructions to his disciples when he first sent them out: If a village does not receive you, shake its dust off your feet and move on to another place. (Luke 10:10-11) How long we are to try, and when we are to go elsewhere, are details to be discerned. The spiritual truth is that God’s work never has to be forced. When we are moving with the Spirit of God on God’s mission, it flows; things come naturally, connections are made, “coincidences” abound, and fruit results.

I have been slow to learn this. Too often I have tried to push things or make projects happen on my own steam, ending up tired and frustrated. I’m learning to release my efforts and initiatives and blockages into God’s hand, to sit back more and watch the Spirit arrange things so that my gifts and time are most fruitfully used. This is what happens when we learn to expect blessings – and if we’re not experiencing blessing in one endeavor, see where else the Spirit is leading us.

Are there areas in your life that feel stuck or stale? Ways you have been trying to live the Gospel that don’t appear to bear fruit? Offer them to God in prayer. 

Ask for insight about when to persevere, and when to fold your tents and move on.

God does invite us to command fire from heaven – the fire of Holy Spirit moving through us to cleanse and make holy our hearts and the world around us. The more we invite that holy fire into our hearts, the freer we are to minister God’s grace.

*Watch The Armor of Light for a powerful look at how one such conservative, the Rev. Rob Schenk, a leader in the pro-life movement and in conservative circles, came to see how incompatible opposition to gun safety laws was with being pro-life… it’s been on PBS, and is available on Netflix.

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6-24-19 - Receiving Strangers

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

This week’s gospel reading finds Jesus and his disciples on the road again. He is heading for Jerusalem for the last time. The roads on which he travels are not particularly friendly:

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.

We need to know a little history of religion and politics to make sense of this encounter. Samaritans were also people of Israel – they were descendants of Israel’s northern kingdom in the days when North (Samaria) and South (Judea) had separated and were ruled by different kings. One reason for the split was that when David established Jerusalem as a capital, the place where the Spirit of God was said to dwell, the leadership there designated Jerusalem, and the temple David’s son Solomon built, as the ONLY holy place where sacrifices could be offered. They denigrated the holy places and shrines in the north, which did not sit well with the residents and priestly class of Samaria. Gradually the feud became a schism between two branches of one family.

When Jesus’ advance team came into this Samaritan village to see if Jesus could stay there, they were rebuffed. What-ever natural hospitality the people might have had, they were not going to play host to any religious leader heading to Jerusalem. Wounds were still fresh this many centuries later.

This so often happens when we disapprove of what someone else stands for. Rather than bother getting to know the person, we may simply reject her for her opinions or positions on issues. We can see this at play in the increasing protests of speakers on college campuses – some people resist even hearing views that they find abhorrent, labeling them toxic.

What is hospitality, though? Is it only the willingness to host people we like and agree with? Or is it being willing to let God “set a table for me in the presence of my enemies,” as the Psalm 23 puts it? I’ve been dreaming up an initiative called “Eating With Strangers,” which would invite the public to a fine meal at church among people they may not know or agree with, with the express intent of reclaiming civility and conversation across boundaries of difference. Stay tuned...

Hospitality is a good framework for how we engage the “Other,” whatever that person's ethnic, racial, sexual, financial or political identity. What if we saw such encounters as the equivalent of offering water and a place to sit to a weary and parched traveler? We have different expectations of guests than we do of friends, and different expectations of ourselves as hosts.

Hospitality is a spiritual practice we are invited to cultivate in all kinds of ways. It could transform our lives – and our culture – if we found ourselves practicing it with people of whom we disapprove, even if we don't like where they've been or where they're going.

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6-21-19 - Don't Follow Me

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

For a short story, our gospel tale has already had quite a few twists and unexpected turns, and there is one more in store for us. After the dramatic dispersal of the demons from this deranged man, after his remarkable healing and restoration to his “right mind,” there is a curious coda. The man wants to follow Jesus, and Jesus refuses him. What’s up with that?

Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

All through the gospels we see Jesus invite people to “Follow me.” Often he demands they leave their homes and jobs to travel with him. Here he has a volunteer recruit, and he turns him away and sends him home? What gives? It’s not surprising that this man would want to come with Jesus – the Lord has released him from years of unimaginable torment from both evil forces and the harsh treatment of his neighbors. Who would want to stay around people who chain you up and try to subdue you? His desire to be with Jesus is understandable. But why would Jesus deny him?

Perhaps Jesus was not ready for a Gentile disciple; I assume this citizen of the Decapolis was Gentile. Though Jesus has encounters with non-Jews in the gospels, these are often awkward and Jesus sometimes seems ambivalent about them. It is unlikely the Jewish leaders and populace would have accepted such a man as part of his inner circle.

But that would be an “organizational” reason. Perhaps Jesus had a missional one: for this man to bear witness to what he had experienced among his own people. Like genetic cancer treatments in which a healthy cell with growth ability is implanted among cancerous tissue, to disrupt toxic growth and convert cells to health, maybe Jesus wanted this man to seed conversion among his own people. “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” This would make him not a "disciple reject" but one of the first missionaries in the gospels.

Sometimes the mission of God calls us to leave the familiar and bring new life to places that are unknown to us. And sometimes we find that mission right in our midst, in our towns and communities, our workplaces and families, our gyms and book groups and social networks. Where is God calling you to declare how much God has done for you?

This newly healed man did just that, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him. That is ALL any of us is expected to do. We do not have to persuade or convert or explain the mysteries of God – only to speak of what Jesus has done for us. I can tell you, Jesus is doing amazing things in my life every day. You too? Declare it! Tell the stories!

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6-20-19 - Fear of the Lord

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

As an animal lover, with a soft spot for pigs (though also one for bacon and pork chops, which results in more soft spots…), I have to admit I dislike the next part of our story:

Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country.

Perhaps, as a Jew, Jesus saw little value in swine. But why send the demons into anything? Couldn’t he command them into the lake without the pigs? Couldn’t he bind them and command them back to hell? All we know is that the news spread quickly. (And again we hear an echo of another iconic bible story – Jesus’ birth, with sheep herders running off to tell everyone they met the wondrous things they’d seen.)

As the news spread, the townspeople came running to see. They were both amazed and frightened – but not so much at the destruction of the herd. What scared them to the core was the transformation in the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons:

Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

It was not the economic loss or property damage that frightened them – it was the assault on their sense of reality, this glimpse into the raw power of God as conducted by Jesus. It was having their convictions about what is possible overturned right before their very eyes that frightened the daylights out of them. It was seeing their conceptions about this man and his place in their community completely shattered. He was even wearing clothes!

The next thing we know, they’re asking Jesus to leave, “for they were seized with great fear.” Don’t we often try to separate ourselves from what we don’t understand, what frightens us? That is the root of so much prejudice and hatred, division and conflict.

Have you seen someone transformed by healing? People who know addicts sometimes see this kind of contrast – though not the course of a single day. Those who work with wounded veterans or the mentally ill sometimes see such trans-formation. If we saw it in an instant, it would scare us too.

When we find ourselves afraid of God’s power, that is an invitation to prayer. We can talk to God about it. We can ask the Spirit to gently lead us into a greater awareness of what God can do and has done.

If only those townspeople had taken this miracle as an invitation to expand their understanding of this God they did not know, instead of sending Jesus away, so much more healing and transformation might have taken place. Let’s not repeat their mistake.

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6-19-19 - Demonized

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

Nearly every week, it seems, our country endures a new eruption of mass gun violence (beyond the 310 individuals shot each day, of whom 100 are killed). The drill has grown numbingly familiar – we learn about the shooter and his or her motives; gun safety groups call for stricter oversight of gun use, gun rights group argue for more guns; we honor and remember the victims, support the survivors, call for action, pledge to pray, opine on social media. Rinse and repeat. As the rhetoric flies, it is very easy to demonize different elements involved, especially the perpetrators of violence and those who enable them.

I don't think that would be Jesus' approach. This week’s story, among others, shows that he had a gift for separating disease, sin and evil from the person afflicted by them. He did not confuse people with the problems they manifest. Confronted with this terrified and terrifying man, Jesus sees what is wrong and addresses it head on. In this case, that means dealing first with the demons oppressing the man.

Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

This man’s neighbors were not so discerning. They took the human approach – they saw the problem, not the person. They sought to control him, subdue him, ultimately to enchain and isolate him. It didn’t work – he was at the mercy of evil run rampant, beyond his control – and theirs.

I do not suggest that people who manifest evil bear no responsibility; this story yields no such conclusion - we are not told that this man was destructive to people other than himself. But even in the case of mass murderers and hate-mongerers (and Jesus would put those on the same moral level), we do well to remember what Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

The key to confronting evil with love is to remember that our battle is with the powers of evil – and that it has been won by Jesus Christ, who gives us his power to wield in further skirmishes. Whether we are dealing with a person bent on destruction, or someone in the grip of addiction, or simply someone who annoys the daylights out of us, we are called to separate the person from the condition they bear or the problems they bring, to do our best to build up the person’s spirit, weak as it may be, while working to free them from the ills that beset them.

Does anyone in your life fit these circumstances?
Has anyone done this for you, seen you apart from what was wrong with you? 

Sometimes that is the key to opening hearts so healing can begin.

It has become very easy these days to demonize other people, those whose values or behaviors or actions or opinions strike us as unholy and destructive. Technically, though, only one entity in the universe can actually demonize someone, and that is the Devil (who my spiritual director aptly terms “the Enemy of human nature”). Do we really want to do his work for him? Didn’t think so.

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6-18-19 - Living Among the Dead

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

Talk about your welcome wagon – the first person to greet Jesus and his disciples as their boat docked in Gentile territory was someone considered the “local loco.”

As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”— for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.)

Each time we reread Scripture, different words or phrases snag our attention; new echoes or resonances ring their chimes. What catches me this time is “he did not live in a house but in the tombs.” And the words it sparks in my memory are those of the angel outside Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”

This man, so beset by the demons in residence in him, had long ago ceased to live in any meaningful way. Naked, but for the times he was bound and chained by his neighbors; crazed, desperately alone, no doubt terrified, barraged by the voices inside him, it is no wonder he sought the quiet and isolation of the burial ground. Perhaps he longed to join his silent companions in death.

Yet there was enough life in him to get him down to that shore that day. There was enough life in his spirit that Jesus could fortify with his Spirit. He did not belong among the dead, but among the living. Among the many gifts this story offers us is the reminder that Jesus is always in the business of life. As his followers, that is our calling as well.

I have known people so deep in depression they were nearly catatonic, hospitalized. And I have seen Jesus bring them back to life, through my prayers, visits, even my refusal to accept this end for them. I have been a conduit for Jesus’ Spirit to strengthen their spirits until they were whole enough to return to the living. I can think of two or three off the top of my head, and probably more. This power is real.

What “dead places” are you aware of in your surroundings, or among your relationships?
Who do you know who is surrounded by death – emotional or otherwise – or deep in death-dealing activities? How might God be inviting you to bring life into those circumstances, to call these people back into life?

In the life of the Christ-follower, every day is Easter morning, Every day we seek the living among the living.

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6-17-19 - The Other Side

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

Ah – Ordinary Time. In our gospel readings we're back to the merely miraculous after weeks exploring the unfathomable mysteries – Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity.
We’re back to following Jesus as he traveled and preached, debated and demonstrated the power of God released into humankind. Jesus was pretty much always on the move, and so were those who followed him. In this week’s story, he takes his disciples on a short trip to a far-away land.

On this journey they crossed several boundaries – literal (the lake), ethnic and religious, psychological and social. The life of faith always calls us to cross boundaries, to go to the Other – the other side, the other perspective, the other who is a stranger – and perhaps also strange:

Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him.

Before we enter this rich and multi-faceted tale, let’s look at the set-up. Jesus and his disciples cross the Sea of Galilee: "One day Jesus got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side of the lake.'”

They were leaving the familiar and going to the Decapolis, the “Ten Cities,” Gentile land, where foreigners dwelt, non-Jews, “others.” The other side. The land beyond. I hear echoes of the “other world,” that Kingdom place Jesus always talked about, his other home; that realm sharing time and space with this one, yet completely other, contained in no time or space as we know it; where our rules are not.

We could view Jesus’ incarnation this way, how he crossed to the Other Side, to this unholy realm from that heavenly Life. He brought with him the practices and “rules” of that realm and invited us to see them at work in this one. He came here to make it possible for us to cross into God-Life, and to take God-Life to the “other sides” in our world.

Only three words, “the other side,” but they invite us to be open. Anything can happen on the other side. It might be scary. It might be exciting. It might change your life, or you might change someone else’s. Indeed, the first “other” Jesus encounters is not merely Gentile; he is also seriously possessed by the demonic. There is need for healing and deliverance in this land, cause for fear, cause for faith.

What if your story today started, "Jesus got into a boat with me and said, ‘Let’s go to the other side.’” Where might that be? How would you feel? In prayer, imagine your conversation with Jesus in that boat. “Where are we going?” "Why can’t we stay here?” “What do you want me to do when we get there?” I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I believe it will be a rich way of praying. And I believe that, wherever Jesus asks us to go, he will go with us.

The life of God is always on the move. We settle just long enough to share the Good News and see it catch, and then we’re led to the next activity or relationship or initiative or place. And that new thing is almost always among the Other. How else can the Other become our friend?

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6-14-19 - How Love Gets In

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

I want to end our week with the epistle reading appointed for Sunday, Romans 5:1-5; 

specifically the last line: 

"…God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."

If we wonder about the mechanism by which the Love we worship and rely on is transmitted to us, Paul asserts that it is a by-product of the Holy Spirit, God’s most essential gift to us. The idea that this love is inside us, ours already, not external, to be somehow found or obtained – or, worse, earned – is a radical reminder to us of what grace is. Grace is unmerited favor, gift without contract or condition.

Many gifts are packed into the gift of Holy Spirit – peace, power, presence; courage, compassion, contrition; healing and hope, to alliteratively name but a few. All of these are contained in the supreme gift of God’s love, God’s “yes” in the face of the world’s “no’s.” God's love is pure gift to us.

And God’s love is gift through us. We are the means through which God intends his love to reach those who do not yet know him, whose hearts perhaps have not been open to receiving her love or her Spirit. It is up to us to make the introductions, to live and speak and interact with such light and love that people around us can see God's love in us, and respond to it for themselves.

Do you feel the love of God in your heart today? I do believe it is there, but I also know many things in our lives and persons can block its flow: fear, insecurity, envy, resentment, sin… Our task is to release this love that has been poured into us so that its flow into, around and through us is unimpeded. If you are aware of an obstacle to that flow, lift it in prayer and invite the Spirit to help you move or transform it.

Take some time today to be present to this Love that fills your heart through the Holy Spirit, whether or not you feel it every moment. How does knowing that reservoir of love is there change your day, your relationships, your work, your life? Where and to whom do you want it to flow next?
The prayer is simple: Come, Holy Spirit.

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6-13-19 - The First Conversion

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

Jesus uses a lot of possessive pronouns when he describes the life of God (at least, as John’s Gospel renders his words…). He speaks of what is the Father’s, what is his, what the Spirit gives. And he indicates that all this richness shared by the three-personed God is also shared with us:

“He [the Spirit] will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

What has been declared to us? The future of God’s reign. The fullness of Life. All the key pieces of information and insight we sometimes feel we’re missing. God is not holding anything back for later – we just don't yet have the capacity to receive the whole signal; our systems would crash.

So, does it do us any good if we don’t “get it?” Here’s what I think: a part of us does get it. All of it. Has received the Good News of life without end, here and in the world to come, and has been set free by that Good News. We experience spiritual growth as that part of us becomes more able to share that knowing with the rest of us, until the faith-receiving self is in command, and the fear-responding self has been integrated and converted. Then we look more like Jesus. We are in a sense our own first mission field.

It’s not only God who incorporates three persons in his being; perhaps we incorporate a very different kind of trinity: our true, God-given, spiritual self; our world-shaped natural self; and the energy it takes to navigate life from that dichotomy, an endeavor that can take on lives of its own.

The good news about the Good News is that what belongs to the Father belongs to the Son, and what belongs to the Son has been declared to us by the Spirit. It is the Spirit who brings about our integration and conversion, as we allow her/him access. And as we receive the fullness of God-Life shared equally by the persons of the holy Trinity, we then share that God-Life with the people around us and within ourselves, and that feeds back into the Life of God, in an infinite loop.
It's the original sharing economy, and it never, ever runs out.

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6-12-19 - The Holy Translator

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

If we set out to write a profile of the Holy Spirit, we would do well to attend closely to how Jesus described him to his disciples before leaving them. We might learn, for instance, that the Holy Spirit functions as a sort of spokesperson for what theologians call “the Godhead,” aka the Holy Trinity:

"When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come."

More than once, Jesus says it is the Father's Word that matters – that Word, in fact, which became flesh in the Son, that Word which creates worlds and holy occasions through the Spirit. The Spirit gives voice to what the Father says, and declares what the Father purposes, “the things that are to come.”

When we hear the voice of God, then, it is the Spirit we are hearing. And when God hears our voice, it is the voice of the Spirit. “… that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words,” Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, adding that the Spirit intercedes for us. (Romans 8)

I’ve never thought of the Spirit in those terms, as the divine translator facilitating the communication between us and God. We don’t need to pray on our own, or be prophetic on our own; in fact, we cannot. The Spirit does that in us, as we invite God’s Life into our lives.

What if we too were able to cultivate that practice – to speak not on our own, but only what we hear from God? How might our churches, our relationships, our lives be affected by inviting the Spirit to speak to us and through us, not speaking unless we felt it was God’s word? I wonder if I could do it for an hour, let alone a day.

We can start by being more aware of the Holy Spirit as communications intermediary, taking thoughts we think on our wavelength, and interpreting them into the heavenly realms; and taking God’s thoughts – which are on a spectrum virtually impossible for us to comprehend – and articulating them in us. Just asking to receive the translation is a prayer I believe God will answer.

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6-11-19 - The Team of Three

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

One major cause of conflict between Christianity and other monotheistic religions has been our understanding of God as One and yet also Three. We insist, against all logic, that we worship the One, True and Holy God, while simultaneously claiming that this One God incorporates three distinct persons within his One-Ness.

No theologian set out to devise a doctrine so complex and ultimately incomprehensible, at least to our cognitive faculties alone. The early thinkers of the church came to this formulation through their close reading of the words of Jesus handed down from those who had known him. Jesus spoke of his Father, and of himself as Son, and of the Spirit, and of each of these entities as God. So he did on his last night with his disciples, as he tried to reinforce all that he had taught them during his time of ministry – and remembered that he did not have to do this alone:

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…”

What a relief it must have been for Jesus, coming to the end of his human mission, about to endure his suffering and death and tests of faith, to remember that he was part of a team, not a solo operator. He knew he could communicate on a human level, with words and signs and symbols – but he could not speak directly into the hearts of even his closest followers. And he also knew his Spirit, who would be released following his death, resurrection and ascension, would have that kind of deep access to those who loved him.

That access, as we allow it, means we have the Spirit on our team too. We don’t have to grasp the truth about God’s love and mystery with our minds alone – we have the Spirit to help us. When something in the Scriptures, or about the faith as we have received it puzzles or troubles us, we aren’t limited to thinking our way to an answer. We can pray, “Spirit, show me what this means. Help me understand.”

We may or may not get enlightenment at that moment, and we will have taken the best action we can take, releasing the matter into God’s hands. At some point, a new way of seeing that particular issue may dawn on us, and in the meantime we will have invited the Spirit of God more deeply into our hearts.

And that presence helps us to rely more heavily on our divine "teammate" for power in ministry, in our relationships, in our work and rest and simply in our being. That's our growth curve in this life of faith.

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6-10-19 - The Gift of Three

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

Next Sunday we celebrate the Holy Trinity, which often inspires questions like, “Why is God three persons? Why not five or two or eight?” We might answer, “It’s a holy mystery!” But there are other responses we can offer: There are three because Jesus referred to a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit, and all as God. He doesn't mention any other divine persons.

And there are three because there are two persons in a father/son (or parent/child) relationship, plus the connection - the spirit - which flows between, through, around and from them. The reason we cannot “divide” the Trinity too sharply, the reason we insist on One God in Three, is that the Spirit is the spirit of the Father and the Son. We can’t take the Spirit out of the picture any more than we can lose our shadow.

Does it matter that God is triune? What does it gain us, besides a headache from trying to figure it out? For me, it’s precious because it tells us that from the get-go God is about relatedness and relationship. God is not a concept – God is a being with capacity for giving and receiving, loving and being loved. So when we say we are made in God’s image, that’s where we begin.

In some sense, all our relationships have a triune quality – ourselves, the other, and the spirit of connection that flows between us, which we might consider a third entity created by our connection. We see this with couples – we know each partner as his or her own person, say, “Mary” and “Joseph,” but we also know them as “Mary and Joseph,” whom we think of in a slightly different way than we do Mary or Joseph individually.

So there is you, and there is God, and there is “you and God,” a product of being united with Christ. All God wants from us is to help grow that relationship. That is one thing God cannot do without us. And we do not have to do it without God. Come, Holy Spirit!

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6-7-19 - Everybody Into the Pool

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

One amazing aspect of the Pentecost story is how the apostle Peter interprets it as he is experiencing it. When Jesus’ followers get slam-dunked by the Holy Spirit and begin to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ in languages they don’t even know, some observers scoff, "They must be drunk on new wine.” But Peter begins to preach to the whole crowd, saying, “We’re not drunk; it’s only nine o’clock in the morning, folks! God is up to something – and it’s something God has been promising for a very long time.”

“…this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”

God’s Spirit poured out on all of humanity? Really? What about being holy enough? What about being part of the tribe? What about correct understanding of theology? What about free will? All flesh? Everybody?

That’s the vision the prophet Joel had spoken of old, and that’s where Peter found the scriptural basis to anchor this bizarre turn of events. It would be some years before he finally grasped just how radical God’s welcome to people outside the House of Israel truly was, but even here, at the beginning, he understands that this outpouring of God-Life is not to be reserved to a chosen few. God wants to give his Spirit to everyone God has created.

So, does one have to be a Christian to receive the Holy Spirit? Don't we need to have the Spirit of Christ to recognize the Spirit of Christ? Or might the Spirit also fill people who don’t know Jesus as Lord and Savior, but revere his spirit, as do Muslims and many Jewish, Buddhist and Baha'i people? I’ve known many non-Christians who seem Spirit-filled, even manifesting gifts of the Spirit. Perhaps God’s Spirit is poured out upon everyone who recognizes the power of sacrificial love. After all, the water in a pool gets everybody in it wet, no distinctions. Is the same true of our Living Water, by which John said Jesus meant the Spirit?

My prayer is that those of us who do know Jesus as Lord, and worship him, might desire the filling of the Holy Spirit, so that we can more actively share that Spirit outside our communities. Three years ago my church in Stamford did a “Pop-Up Pentecost” service in a downtown park. This Sunday, the two churches I serve in Southern Maryland will gather for worship at the historic site where one parish began its life in 1683, by the banks of the Port Tobacco River. I don’t know how the Spirit will bless and empower us – but I believe that if we show up and say, “Fill me,” the Spirit will show up too. What happens next, is anyone’s guess!

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6-6-19 - The Word Got Out

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

I have always struggled with French. I studied it for much of my childhood, as we often lived in Francophone countries. My German was solid, Italian came easily, but not French. And then once in Brussels I was at a party, and after a pretty strong drink I was amazed to hear myself having a reasonably fluent conversation in French! Must have been the spirits.

It fascinates me that the primary phenomenon at that first Pentecost was the supernatural ability to speak in languages the speaker had never learned. More common manifestations of the Spirit are things like tears, speaking in tongues, sensing messages from God to convey to the community (prophecy), or even something that happened at many churches in the late 20th century, waves of holy laughter seizing the whole congregation. (Yes, the Holy Spirit can be wacky…) But what happened that first time was the ability to communicate across barriers of ethnicity and language.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

God wants his word to get out. We know Jesus as the Word of God who got out, out and about, and then sent his Spirit to go where no human being could go: directly into the hearts and minds of other human beings. Yet even when we are filled with the Spirit, we don’t fully understand God-speak. We can’t, in this life. But the closer we come to God, the more we do understand her language.

It is as true in our human relationships. No person can fully understand another – our emotional languages are unique, even if we share a common tongue. But as two people draw closer to each other, they begin to be able to read the cues and pick up the signs, even mentally translate words sometimes. We learn to understand each other, if never fully.

Our mission is to be translators of God’s Word to the people around us, many of whom have never learned God-speak. That means we need to know God’s Word, and be willing to speak about how that Word has been spoken into our lives. Mostly it means we need ask to be filled with the Spirit, who does the translating for us.

God's Word can get out, as we’re willing to hear it, and then speak it. We’ll be amazed at the languages we become fluent in once we let the Spirit do the talking through us.

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6-5-19 - Shake, Rattle and Roll

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

For the rest of the week, we will explore the reading from Acts about what happened to Jesus’ followers on that Day of Pentecost. Pentecost was the Greek name for the Jewish festival of Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, which marked both the grain harvest and the giving of the Torah. As observant Jews, Jesus’ disciples were gathered for prayer when the Holy Spirit began to make some noise:

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

It must have been terrifying – the sound like a hurricane, the sight of these fire-like tongues appearing, one resting on each person… and then the utterance of speech in languages unknown to the speaker. But maybe they weren’t frightened at all, for we’re told they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. It’s amazing when God acts in so definite a way.

And it’s always wonderful when the Spirit is poured out on the whole assembly - then no one thinks she has gone crazy. In my experience, though (admittedly, my Episcopalian experience, which is a big qualifier…), the Spirit comes more quietly and gently, inciting a sense of God’s presence and deep feeling but not necessarily a lot of noise. I have seen manifestations of tears and outbreaks of peace more than I have felt the foundations shaking.

Does the Spirit bring only as much power as we’re willing to receive? Is our impact limited by our capacity to be Spirit-carriers? Or does the Spirit bring as much power as is needed for what God wants to accomplish on a given day? That day, God was about changing the course of history. If the rest of the New Testament is to be believed, those newly anointed apostles so boldly and constantly proclaimed the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ that the movement they began is still rolling, if with a little less shaking and rattling.

It wouldn’t hurt to increase our capacity to hold and move with the Spirit of God. God is still in the business of transformation. “Come, Holy Spirit” is never a wasted prayer. And if you’re not used to asking for that, I commend it to you. With the Spirit of God working through us, we can proclaim freedom and love as boldly as those first apostles did. Are you ready? Let's roll.

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6-4-19 - Not As the World Gives

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

In his last words to his disciples, Jesus told them to expect a gift from his Father: the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of God. Jesus spoke about the Spirit as having a definable personality, characteristics, traits, functions. That’s one reason Christians arrived at this notion of God as three distinct yet united persons.

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

Jesus implies his teaching and training have been incomplete, limited; the Holy Spirit will teach everything, reinforcing all that Jesus spoke to them. He promises to leave his peace with them, a gift he would give again when he first saw them – perhaps in this very same room? – after he rose from the dead. He invites them to let go of the sorrow and anxiety that has gripped them, to let go of fear.

How might we do that? We need to receive this gift of peace in the spiritual aspect of our being and let it transform our natural selves. We cannot attain it with worldly strategies; it is not a gift to be taken, but received. Perhaps that is what Jesus meant by “I do not give to you as the world gives.” (Perhaps this is also what a quote attributed to Albert Einstein, is getting at: “"Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.")

How does the world give? Capriciously, inconsistently, often conditionally. The world rewards achievement and productivity, privilege and connections. God rewards humility and faithfulness, weakness as well as strength. Above all, God seems to give as a function of relationship, to honor a relationship that already exists, not to attract us into one.

We pretty much know how to play by the world’s rules, some of us more successfully than others. Lasting peace, peace that stays with us even in unpeaceful circumstances, is a fruit of running our lives on God’s operating system, learning to live by radical trust rather than self-saving strategies. Is there a concern in your life right now that you might try to approach in God’s way rather than the world’s?

Learning to live on God-speed is a transition. We choose to put that relationship above all the others that claim our hearts, to offer everything – and receive far more in return.

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6-3-19 - Loved Forever

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Don’t we want, more than anything, a love that will never go away, never diminish, never end? That human longing makes poignant even our sweetest relationships. Knowing that our beloved will grow up and maybe away, or will one day depart this life, or our life, is what puts the bitter into bittersweet.

Next Sunday we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, that great day when the Holy Spirit came in power upon Jesus’ unsuspecting disciples and turned them into apostles. This game-changing event is not reported in any of the four Gospels – it appears in Acts. The Gospel reading appointed for Sunday is from John, and shows us Jesus trying to explain to his followers the gift of Holy Spirit that God will send:

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.'"

Is Jesus saying this great gift will come only if they keep his commandments? Is the Holy Spirit a reward for good behavior? I don’t believe that is Jesus’ message. I hope he is saying, “If you love me, keeping my commandments will come naturally to you. And as you live in my truth and walk in my ways, you will be open to receiving this gift the Father will send.” This gift is covenantal, not contractual.

Jesus says this Spirit of truth is an advocate, someone who will stand by them in times of trial and equip them for ministry the way he did – only this relationship will not be limited by time or space. “He will be with you forever.” A love that is forever – that fulfills our deep-seated longing.

And it gets even better: we don’t have to go looking for this love, this power, this presence. Jesus said the Spirit of God will abide with us, even in us. We won’t be taken over ala “invasion of the body snatchers," not possessed by God’s Spirit in a way that invalidates our unique selves. Rather we will be abided with, walked with, held close, counseled and consoled – by God, right here within us. Always. That is a gift worthy of eternity. And it is already ours.

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