5-29-20 - Our Superpower

You can listen to this reflection here. A gospel appointed for Sunday, John 20:19-23, is here.

If you could ask for a superpower, what would it be? Incredible strength? The ability to read minds? To time travel? To know the truth in all settings? It’s hard to imagine asking for the superpower of forgiveness… yet that is what Jesus gave his gathered disciples on Easter night. That is what Jesus has given us.

First, he gave them peace – he showed up as they were literally locked in by fear, and spoke peace to them:  When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

Then he gave them more peace, and a mission: 

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 

And then he told them what that mission entailed and equipped them for it: 

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

The Holy Spirit brings many gifts to us, and releases many gifts in us. But the first one Jesus mentions is the authority to forgive or to withhold forgiveness. That’s a lot of authority, friends. In a sense, Jesus is saying that God will follow our lead. When we refuse to release someone from the debt they owe us, we keep them bound, and ourselves bound to them. When we do release forgiveness, we bring freedom to people and systems, and to our own hearts.

In our current climate of fear and division, I often wonder what faith communities can offer. The world doesn’t really need our food banks and advocacy, as integral as they are to our mission of justice and peace; other organizations offer those. I don’t think the world needs our lovely worship and lively fellowship – people are not clamoring to join us. Maybe what the world most needs from us is exactly that superpower Jesus gave us – the supernatural ability to offer forgiveness, and to model it. Maybe what we can do best is often what we put at the end of our to-do lists: being the makers of peace Jesus told us to be.

The verb used in “blessed are the peacemakers” means to craft. We are to be crafters of peace where peace has been broken. It’s an active process of building a new thing. Often building begins with dismantling what has been broken. Our mission to give or withhold forgiveness comes into play as we address the broken systems in our world – the economic systems that have created an ever-widening income gap where some 39% of the country’s wealth is held by the top 1 percent of its people, and more and more families are sliding into poverty; the systemic racism perpetuated by laws and networks long ago designed to preserve wealth and security and benefits to “Caucasian” (an invented term) Americans, that has left communities of color particularly vulnerable to the ravages of Covid-19, that have resulted in the untimely and unjust deaths of an increasing number of black men. These men are my brothers. These women are my sisters.

Do we forgive? Do we withhold forgiveness? How do we model forgiveness if we withhold it? How do we craft peace in this world? How do we craft space for grace?

People are given superpowers for a reason. Jesus gave us ours because he wants us on the front lines, not holed up in our worship spaces. (We’re out of them now!) He wants us to cross boundaries of difference and craft peace so that those worship spaces become filled with people who do not look like us. Black churches filled with white and brown faces; white churches filled with black and brown faces. All of us together receiving God’s peace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. That is Pentecost.

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5-28-20 - Spiritual Capacity

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

“Flesh” is one of those words that mean one thing in churchy settings and another in the wider world. “Out there” it means bodily substance, plant or animal. In Bible World it refers to humanity. This is what Peter means when, trying to interpret the furor at Pentecost, he labels this event as the fulfillment of a prophecy: “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.’”

The Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible: hovering at creation, inspiring artisans, speaking through prophets. References increase in the New Testament, especially in Luke’s accounts: prophetic utterances, Jesus’ conception, baptism and subsequent ministry; and working through the apostles. Jesus is often said to be “full of the Spirit” when miracles are recounted. The Spirit was not limited to Jesus, but Jesus, the enfleshed Son of God, was a human with the capacity to hold and wield the Spirit’s power full-strength. Because faith and Spirit were undiluted in him, he could do things we think of as miracles.

Jesus seemed to be about training his followers to increase their capacity for holding and wielding the Spirit’s power, so that God’s life would be less diluted in them too. Far more than teaching them to “do,” he was equipping them to receive and live the Life of God. If God wants this Life to be abundant in the world, God needs vessels with the breadth and depth to contain such love, such power.

What changes at Pentecost is that the presence of God is poured out on human containers, ready or not. Jesus demonstrated that humankind could carry such divine power. Now it was up to those who were willing to have their capacity increased. And that could be any kind of person:
“…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. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.”

What a prophecy of radical equality Joel offers! So Paul can write with confidence some years after this event, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Anyone with the willingness to receive the life of God can be filled with the Spirit. Even people we’re not fond of. Even us.

Who are some people in whom you discern the Spirit of God? 

Anyone on that list surprise you? What sort of people do you think would not be eligible?
Do you feel worthy yourself? Are you interested in being filled with more God-Life?
How might you allow your capacity for faith and filling to be expanded? What’s in the way?

If Jesus was truly more about increasing his followers’ receptivity to the Spirit than about “training them for ministry,” what does that suggest about where the church can best put its energies? How might we better increase our collective capacity for living in the Spirit, as the Spirit lives in us? There is no person created by God whose capacity for the Spirit cannot be expanded. Pentecost was only the beginning. We can live the rest of the story every day.

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5-27-20 - Beaujolais Nouveau?

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

After the wind and the tongues “as of fire” and the speaking in many languages, everyone in Jerusalem knew something was up with these Jesus people: “All were amazed and perplexed, saying, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’”

How right they were. The apostles may not have been high on spirits – as Peter says, “Please! It’s only 9 o’clock in the morning!” – but they were filled with the Spirit of God, whom Jesus once likened to new wine. When asked why his disciples didn’t observe all the formal rituals, he said people don’t pour new wine into old wineskins, “If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” (Matt 9:17)

New wine is an apt metaphor for being filled with the Spirit. It tends to be more potent than wine that has aged and, being earlier in the fermentation process, is more expansive; hence the risk of ruin to older, more brittle wine skins. It is less predictable, less controllable than older wines. I believe many churches’ discomfort with the Holy Spirit has a lot to do with their desire for control. Perhaps the wine of the Church has aged a little too long, become too smooth – good to the taste, and unlikely to trouble anyone.

We could use a dose of Holy Spirit fermentation. We could stand to have the Holy Spirit renewed in us, pushing what has become brittle in us and in our churches to expand and make room for the life of God. Otherwise we crack and break, the new wine goes running out, and we feel empty. (Transitioning our worship life online during this Covid-19 sequestering period has certainly hastened that process.)

Every day we can ask for a deeper filling of the Holy Spirit. It can happen as we say, “Come, Holy Spirit,” or “Come, Lord Jesus,” or as we pray in tongues or sing in praise or move our bodies in a posture of worship. If you crave certain spiritual gifts – like healing, or faith, or more compassion, or boldness, ask for those gifts. The Spirit knows what gifts s/he wants us to have; it never hurts to ask for what we want in order to do the ministries we feel God is calling us to offer. We don’t have to worry about losing control, or beware the language of new birth. Mostly we are filled to the capacity we have, until we are able to receive more.

Some years ago, I read an obituary of actress Ann B. Davis, who played the housekeeper on The Brady Bunch, I was interested to learn that she was a charismatic Episcopalian:
For many years after “The Brady Bunch” wound up, Davis led a quiet religious life, affiliating herself with a group led by [retired Episcopal Bishop William] Frey. “I was born again,” she told the AP in 1993. “It happens to Episcopalians. Sometimes it doesn't hit you till you're 47 years old.”

It can "hit us" at any age or denomination, especially if we’re open to it. It happens more as we invite the Spirit to make that dimension of God’s life real in us. Come, Holy Spirit!

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5-26-20 - What's Your Language?

You can listen to this reflection here.

It always amuses me that the reading from Acts about Pentecost – which details how a bunch of Galilean fisherman were suddenly able to speak languages they had never learned – contains so many unpronounceable words:

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. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power."

We can almost understand what it must have been like to hear these foreign languages coming out of the mouths of Jesus’ followers. But was the miracle in the speaking or the hearing? Were the apostles speaking those languages, or did the hearers suddenly understand Aramaic as though it was their own tongue? Who knows. The effect was the same. People heard the Good News about “God’s deeds of power” in their own language and could choose for themselves if they wanted to follow the Way of Jesus. Luke tells us that 3,000 were baptized that day. And we’re off!

In what language do the people around you need to hear the Good News? Perhaps we first need to answer this: to whom do you feel called to share the Good News of God’s love? We're not always comfortable sharing our spiritual selves with friends and family. It might be acquaintances or clients or co-workers, or people hanging out in a park. It could be your kids’ friends who populate your kitchen, or that person at the dry cleaners who looks so sad all the time. It might even be someone at church who understands the rituals and not the love they're meant to express.

Each one with whom we might talk about “God’s deeds of power” has a language in which they are most comfortable. “Church talk” and Christian jargon are foreign tongues to many who lack context to comprehend even words like “hymn” and “scripture” and “gospel,” not to mention cultural idioms like “Good Samaritan” or “walking on water.” What universal terms convey love and grace and acceptance and healing from shame, addiction and dis-ease, mental and physical? What languages do you hear around you?

A spiritual exercise for today: Get settled and centered in God’s presence, however you best do that. Ask, “Is there someone you want me to tell about your power and love?” Wait and see what names or faces come up. If one does, ask, “What language must I speak to reach that person?” It’ll come.

Jesus promised that his followers would have the words they need to share the Good News. The words that are given to you will emerge from your own stories of how you have experienced God’s deeds of power and love. If you don’t feel you have… there’s another prayer.

And if you know you have – don’t you know someone who would like to hear that story?

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5-25-20 - When the Spirit Comes

You can listen to this reflection here.

Water Daily normally reflects upon the Gospel reading appointed for the following Sunday. But the principal text for Pentecost is from Acts, so that story will be our focus.

Pentecost is one of the Big Three festivals of the Christian calendar, along with Christmas and Easter. Some call it the birthday of the Church, and some the only day in the year when we focus on the Holy Spirit. I call it the day when the promised power, peace and presence of God came to dwell in God’s people, initiating the whole Christian project in which we continue today, as co-laborers in God’s mission.

Jesus’ followers stayed together during the forty days of his resurrection presence; they watched him ascend into heaven, and then returned to the city, where he told them to wait for the gift promised by the Father, to be "clothed with power from on high." I doubt they knew what that meant, but they continued to wait and to worship, and to stay out of sight of the authorities.

Pentecost was a major Jewish feast fifty days after Passover, and they were together celebrating when things got weird: 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.

Maybe this “big entrance” on the part of the Holy Spirit has led some to expect strange manifestations when the Spirit shows up. There can be phenomena like speaking in tongues, or prophesying, or weeping, laughing hysterically, or feeling intense heat. We read about these in the New Testament and hear about them in churches today. Often, though, the Spirit comes quietly, filling us, rendering us silent in awe and wonder and gratitude. Perhaps how the Spirit comes has a lot to do with what God’s purpose is in a given situation.

It seems God had a big purpose for that festival day in Jerusalem. Did God hold this outpouring of the Spirit until the holiday, when the city would be full of pilgrims from other lands? When their sudden, inexplicable ability to speak to visitors in their own languages would create the maximum stir? That can go on our list of questions for God. A stir there was. Jesus’ followers were released into a boldness and effectiveness they had never shown before. And a reform movement in the Jewish tradition, that might have been suppressed or died out of its own accord, became a phenomenon which forever changed the world.

Has it changed us? The Spirit is God’s promised gift to all who follow Christ. Our liturgies affirm that we receive the Spirit in baptism, in confirmation – indeed, at every celebration of the eucharist. Sometimes we need that gift to be released in us. If you would like to be more centered on Christ, more discerning of God’s leading, more effective in ministry, pray for the Spirit – already in you – to be released in you today. Sometimes that works better when someone else prays it for us. But let’s start where we start, or continue where we continue.

It is the simplest prayer, and the most profound, and the only one we need: “Come, Holy Spirit.”
Then wait and notice. You might have sensations or images, or maybe you’ll feel nothing then and notice later. It’s God’s timing… and our willingness to receive. Come, Holy Spirit.

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5-22-20 - Blessing

You can listen to this reflection here. The gospel for Ascension Day is here.

In 2011, on Ash Wednesday, I first went to the train station with some colleagues at the crack of dawn to offer the imposition of ashes and a prayer to commuters as they rushed past. Well, they did rush past, and then some would do a double take and come back, “I can get ashes here? That's so great!,” they'd say, lowering their foreheads to my reach. I offered a brief prayer with those who had the time.

The “Ashes on the Go” movement has its share of critics who note, rightly, that the imposition of ashes with its reminder of mortality, “Dust you are and to dust you shall return,” makes little sense outside the context of the Ash Wednesday liturgy. It can be considered “cafeteria Christianity” at its worst, giving people access to blessing without any knowledge or commitment. Yet there is also such benefit to inviting people to access the holy in the midst of the everyday, not to mention getting Christians out from behind our pretty church walls into the open. Sometimes the blessing has to precede the understanding. Maybe always.

So I am cheered by this depiction of Jesus blessing his followers even as he is carried up into heaven:
Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.

"While he was blessing them." Even as he ascended into heaven! Luke tells us that this blessing of Jesus’ was so galvanizing, the apostles continued it: “And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.” 

How wonderful if it could be said of us that we were “continually blessing God,” in the temple or in the world. God's blessing is no passive wave of the hands. It is an active transfer of love and commendation. To bless and be blessed is to increase the Life of God in us and around us. Blessing is one way we communicate with God, and pass along to others what God has given us. We might even say it is to be the chief activity of God's family – more central than much of what church people spend our time and energy on.

When did you last feel blessed? If you’re a church-goer, you receive a pastor's blessing at the end of the worship service. But when did you last feel God’s blessing, God’s pleasure and delight in you? Try to recall that, and put yourself in the way of it more often. I believe God’s blessing is always there for us; we experience it in different ways, so know yours.

When have you been aware of blessing someone else, whether they knew it or not? We can bless people in person. We can also call blessing down on people we pass on the street, on animals, on countries, on marriages, on houses and workplaces – you name it. When you say, “God bless you,” know that you are invoking the power that made the universe and inviting it to bring blessing to whomever or whatever you bless. It's a powerful action.

Who or what do you feel called to bless today? Go do it!
You can do it sitting in your house, or you bless as you go. Jesus did. He still is.

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5-21-20 - Witnesses

You can listen to this reflection here. The gospel for Ascension Day is here. 

Jesus said to his disciples, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

I like to joke that many Christ-followers seem to think they're in the Witness Protection Program, staying as low-profile as possible about their faith and spirituality. That can happen when we focus more on church than on Christ. Jesus calls those who bear his name in the world to bear witness to their stories of life in him, and to the power of God he taught and demonstrated. And witnesses testify.

Maybe “testify” is the problematic word. A witness in a courtroom does not necessarily speak voluntarily. So let’s leave that sterile, judicial context and think about the way we talk about things we’ve witnessed in everyday life. An amazing encounter with wildlife. That video of cats stealing dogs' beds. The adorable thing our granddaughter said. The viral choir. The new recipe we tried. The movie we just saw. We bear witness all the time.

So let’s start talking about our encounters with the Holy when we have them. Let’s talk about our outreach work and our worship experiences and the joy of community. And let’s talk about Jesus and his story, and how it interweaves with our stories… or better yet, how it frames our stories. For our faith is not meant to be one strand of our life, woven in with all the other strands – it is meant to be the frame in which the tapestry sits, the frame that holds and contains our work and relationships and play and rest - our life.

Bearing witness is not even something we have to “do.” It is something we allow God to do through us. This Witness Program comes with built-in power supply. Jesus said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) 

And in Luke: “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

That power came at Pentecost. We receive it at baptism, confirmation, ordination - and any time we exercise faith in the name of Jesus. If we find ourselves in a conversation that could get “spiritual,” we can say a quick prayer: “Okay, God, you promised power… give me the courage and the words.”

Exercise your faith in prayer if called on. Tell a story that is meaningful to you. Talk about how knowing Y'shua is meaningful to you. We can do that in ways that give people space for their own experiences and views. A witness is not there to persuade, but to tell a story that is true and authentic. We tell our stories of God, inviting others to tell theirs. And so we create community.

“…You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” From the perspective of Jerusalem in 33 CE (give or take...), we are the ends of the earth. Anytime we receive blessing from God, let’s bear witnesses.

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5-20-20 - Forward and Back

You can listen to this reflection here.

This Thursday is Ascension Day, a major church feast day - and ignored by most churches, unless they are named Ascension. We will spend the rest of this week on this story.

The Gospels tell us that Jesus hung out for forty days after his resurrection, instructing and inspiring his followers to believe the impossible, and to live as though they believed it. It’s hard to convince the world all things are possible with God, while holed up in a room for fear of your life. So Jesus kept showing up when least expected, and going through the lessons again. Once more, with feeling…

Jesus said to his disciples, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you – that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem."

This time he does more than tell them where they’ve been – he tells them where they’re going: to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations, starting from where they are. In the Acts version of the Ascension story, Jesus gives a fuller itinerary: “… you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The book of Acts shows us how closely the spreading of the Good News followed that trajectory.

God always asks us to start from where we are, not where we'd like to be. And to know where we've been; Jesus reminds his followers of their history. That's why we read the Hebrew Bible - it reminds us where we stand in the big picture of God’s courtship of an alienated humanity. We may not always like the way those ancient people spoke of God, or the words or motives they attributed to God, but the overarching story is one of love. We need to know our story.

Yet God calls us forward, not back. The Spirit is moving, all around us, often in places and people we didn’t think to look. Part of our growth as apostles is learning to discern the activity of God, to note it, celebrate it, and join it. Where have you seen evidence of God’s action lately? In whom? Did you read about something, or see something on the street, or have a conversation that struck a spark in you? Tell that story; write it, so it joins the record of ancient encounters.

The bible is an anchor as we grow in faith and in the love of God. It tethers us to a rich tradition and a vast and diverse community of faith, living and gone before. Consider it the rearview mirror of faith – if we want to go forward in God’s mission, we have to keep our eyes on the road and at the same time be aware of what’s behind us. It’s called driving.

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5-19-20 - Jesus' Unanswered Prayer

You can listen to this reflection here.

How many people have stepped away from God because a prayer they desired with all their heart was not answered? If we’re going to put our trust in a being we cannot see, hear or touch, whom we can only imagine based on reports of others and our own subjective experience, hadn’t that all-powerful being at least deliver the goods?

Yet it seems that God does not always deliver the goods we want. Even Jesus, the incarnate, sinless Son of God, who dwelt in God’s holy presence since before time began and dwells there for eternity, had unanswered prayers. There is one in this Sunday’s gospel. Jesus prayed, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

In case you hadn’t noticed, the church that is meant to be Christ’s One Body in the world is more divided than ever. Most people on one side or another of its many divides would say that those on the other sides distort or misinterpret Jesus’ legacy. Many would offer excellent support for their position. Unfortunately, unity rarely overrides the human need to be right.

So, did Jesus pray a dumb prayer? Why has it not been answered in a way that matched the deep desire of his heart? Why has love been so hard a road, even for the followers of the Lord of Love, the Prince of Peace?

It is because we remain human. Not even the unlimited power of God can prevail against a human will that is not yielded to God. That is the way God set it up. God’s power is unlimited – except where God has chosen to limit it. If we have free will, the will to choose God or not-God, then God has voluntarily bound God’s own hand. If our prayers depend on the will of another person to choose one way or another, their efficacy will depend on how much that person is open to the influence of the Holy Spirit.

What prayers of yours have felt fruitless? 

Are you trying to pray around someone rather than for them?

This prayer of Jesus that his followers would be one, protected from the corrosion and dis-ease that division cause, can only be answered in our choosing differently. When we invite God to bring our wills for his church into alignment with his will, we might begin to seek fellowship with others who claim to follow Christ. Seeking fellowship is not the same thing as seeking agreement. Too often we start by trying to resolve differences rather than by building relationships.

How might we work toward the fruit that Jesus prayed for, that fruit of unity and love by which he said the world would know his followers? Is there someone who believes differently than you to whom you might offer relationship? That’s challenging in this season of not gathering in groups, but we can find a way.

In the fullness of God's time, Jesus’ prayer has already been answered. Its completion will become more visible as we align ourselves with that prayer and live into it. Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. Where true love is, God is there.

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5-18-20 - Eternity Is Now

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

As John’s Gospel renders the account of Jesus’ last night with his disciples before his arrest and execution, he took a LONG time to say goodbye. The “farewell discourses” comprise five chapters in John. Much of that is Jesus’ final teaching about what he’s been up to, and what (who…) is coming next. These words ground the development of our doctrine of the Trinity, God as Three distinct “persons” in One unified whole.

Finishing his remarks to his followers, Jesus addresses his heavenly Father, in what theologians call “the high priestly prayer.” From this evolved the Church’s understanding that the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, existed before all things were made, “was with God and was God” always and forever. Jesus says, “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.”

In the presence of God is where Jesus began, and where he returned after his mission in the world was completed. In the presence of God is also where Jesus’ followers, those who believe, will dwell eternally. Jesus prayed, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

We often talk as though eternal life, knowing God, dwelling in God’s presence, happens when we die. But our Good News proclaims that, in Christ, God came among us. Our Good News is that when Jesus returned to the Father, God sent the Spirit of Christ to be with us always, at all times, to the end of the ages. Eternity has already begun. It is now.

We can forget that, aware of so much that is not of God. Our great claim as Christians is that the Life of God is already, is now, is here. Indeed, we help bring it more fully into being as we reflect that Life more than we do the life of the world. Life in this world is among the things that will pass away. Life in God, which we enter here and now, is forever.

What or who in your life today reminds you that you are already living in the eternal Life of God?
What distracts you from that heart-knowledge? How might we exercise our faith muscles to affirm that God is here, to pray about the matters that make us fear God is not here?

Jesus completed his work. He released into this world the Life of God; it cannot be re-contained or suppressed. But to many this God-Life can remain invisible – unless we make it known by how we live here and now. Where, to whom will you make that Life known today?

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5-15-20 - Swimming In Love

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

Language fails when we try to convey the overlapping unity of love and persons in God, a triune swirl of inter-relatedness in which we are invited to swim. I comfort myself that Jesus, at least as his remarks are rendered in John’s Gospel, also seemed to have trouble making it clear:

“In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Where does Jesus end and the Father begin? Where do we end and Jesus begin? Are we in the Father and in Jesus, or vice versa, or (g) all of the above? The answer is (g)… maybe (z). God is love. Jesus is love. We love and are loved, and so are drawn into the eternal and present Love of God.

When we fall in love with someone, there is often a period where identities seem to merge. We don’t want to be separate; we want to fuse, to lose ourselves in the glorious Other, whose every word and movement is wondrous. This is an intoxicating stage of in-love-ness – and it’s not forever. If the relationship is to grow and flourish, we need to differentiate again, to carry our own identities, loving and respecting the other person, being with but not needing to be one with.

So is Jesus saying we lose our identity when we let the love of God become a part of us, and we of God? I don’t think so. Christian understanding suggests that each of us is unique and precious. Our self does not get obliterated as we enter the stream of God’s love. Rather, being loved for who we are allows us to become more fully who we truly are, shedding the inauthentic carapaces and personas we grow to protect ourselves and cope with adversity.

We don’t lose ourselves swimming in God’s love any more than we do when we swim in the vast, refreshing ocean. Rather, we are fully alive. We are contained in our bodies, yet somehow one with a primal element. We exult as we move in that unbounded water, diving and dancing, turning somersaults and riding waves, all kinds of things we can’t do on land, just as dwelling in God's love enables us to do and think and say and offer all kinds of things we can’t in our natural selves.

Today in prayer let's go swimming. Imagine a waterfall flowing into the sea. Let’s say the sea is the Love of God, the waterfall is Jesus, and the spray that rises as they meet is the Holy Spirit. This sea is always being renewed, refreshed, replenished, the water one, so you don’t know what’s sea, what’s waterfall, what’s spray. Imagine jumping in.
How does the water feel? How does it make you feel? How do you want to move in it?

If this is God’s love – how does it feel to be immersed in love? How would you share the water with others? How might you invite others to join you in that pool?

Swimming in the love of God allows us to access the source of Love that has no limit, so that we love out of the reservoir of God’s infinite love, not our own limited supply. As we near the summer “swimming season,” I hope you’ll have lots of opportunities to be reminded of the water in which we were reborn, in which we will swim always. Splash!

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5-14-20 - Not As Orphans

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

Orphans. It’s a strong word. In 2005 I joined with others to raise the money to build and launch a residential school for some of the thousands of children orphaned by AIDS in Western Kenya, one of the poorest regions in that country. As the chief communicator drafting brochures, web pages and fundraising appeals, I used the word “orphans” as often as I could; it tugs at hearts strings more effectively than terms like “at-risk” or “OVC” (orphans and vulnerable children).

Then I learned that it is a word our Kenyan partners avoid whenever possible. In an extended-family culture, to say a child is orphaned means that no one in her family or even village is prepared to care for her, a scenario which suggests the whole community is disabled. Many prospective students at the Nambale Magnet School had lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS; few were to be labeled orphans.

”I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus tells his disciples on his last night with them. “I am coming to you.” It’s not what a boss would say to employees, or a coach to players, or a teacher to students. This language acknowledges that the community of Jesus followers had become a family, with ties as thick as blood. Jesus recognizes that his departure from their daily lives, and the violence with which he would be wrenched from them, would likely to be as dislocating for them as it is for a child to lose his father or mother.

And it is yet another hint that death will not be the end of Jesus’ story. Only death can create an orphan. Certainly Jesus’ followers were going to feel like orphans after his death, and we see that sorrow depicted in the passion story. But they were not to be orphans, he says, because death was not to be his permanent future.

How might it change us to live in that confidence whenever we’re facing great loss or sorrow (or a pandemic)? That we have not been left as orphans, no matter how abandoned we may feel in a given moment? It can be as difficult for me to trust that God is real and present as it is for my cats to understand, when I go on a trip, that I am indeed returning. We don’t have the capacity to truly comprehend it – so we learn to trust it little by little, strengthening our faith muscles, testing God’s love and Jesus’ promise:  “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.”

When did you last have an experience of “seeing” Jesus? In another person, in a movement of God, in prayer, in song? I ask this question a lot – it’s the best way I know to reinforce our faith. Keep a record of those sightings; they help encourage us when we feel orphaned.

As (I think!) my cats do when I return, we can relax and rejoice whenever we do experience Jesus’ life with us and in us again. And whatever our version of purring, I’m sure it pleases our God when we offer our thanks in love.

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5-13-20 - God Within

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

I sometimes hear people talk about “the God within,” or “the divine spark” in each of us. I urge caution about such language. It can be a short distance from such phrases to saying that we are all little gods, with the power to control our own destinies. As attractive as that notion might be to some (not to me – God help me if I am my own god!), it is not the Way that Jesus invites his followers to travel.

The New Testament teaches that the presence of Christ is within each of us by virtue of our baptism. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,” Paul writes, not because his identity has been supplanted in an “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” way, but because his identity has been fulfilled, perfected in union with Christ through baptism. He has become most truly who he is in union with Christ.

The way we receive the full-time presence of Christ in our persons is through the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Christ. “You know him,” Jesus says to his disciples, “because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” The promise that Christ’s life abides – rests, stays, hangs out – within us offers tremendous resources; ultimate power, the power that made all things and restores all things. “Same power that conquered the grave lives in me…” we sing.

When we live in the knowledge of Christ’s life within us we pray differently, act differently, hope differently. We don’t pray for God's power to descend on us from above, but that the power already in us by virtue of our union with Christ be released in us, and through us for others. We pray not as though we’re on a long distance call, but from within a heart-to-heart conversation, Christ’s heart in our heart.

We act differently, because we are acting on the power, promise and presence of God, not waiting for those to be manifest outside us. And we hope differently, knowing that God’s love is so very near, so very “already.” Of course, there is a “not yet fully realized” dimension, but so much more in the here and now than we often recognize.

I started to know “Christ within” through cultivating the practice of centering prayer, seeking to become still and able to tune in to the Spirit’s prayer in me, to “pray/imagine” Jesus in conversation, to be able to praise. I get to that still place most quickly through praying in tongues – which Paul says is the Spirit’s prayer released in us. “…for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit prays within us with sighs too deep for words.” (Romans 8:26) I don't know Christ well, but he isn’t “out there”; he’s in here.

How do you experience Christ within you? If you want, sit in stillness, in prayer, and say, “Jesus – I am told you live with me and in me. I would like to experience more of your life in me. How do I do that?” Wait in silence, and pay attention to any images or words that form in your mind. If your to-do list forms, gently invite it to wait over there, and return your focus to your prayer. You can repeat, “Jesus,” or another word or phrase. Try it for five minutes, and see what comes. Write down whatever transpires, and do it again another day.

Some people experience the reality of Christ within more keenly in action than in contemplation, or in worship. There is no “right” way. There is only invitation to more fullness and life than we’ve ever dreamed of.

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5-12-20 - The Spirit of Love

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

Yesterday, we explored the relationship between loving Jesus and following his commands. Though he summed this up as loving God and our neighbors, he often got more specific: Love your enemies. Give to anyone who asks. Take up your cross and follow me. Proclaim the Good News and heal the sick. Many of Jesus’ commandments are so counter-cultural, counter-intuitive, not to mention inconvenient, that keeping them is only possible from a place of love.

Such love also enables us to receive the gift Jesus promised his disciples that night before he was taken from them: 

"And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.”

Jesus calls the Spirit “another Advocate,” suggesting this has been one of his roles, to stand with them against spiritual danger, to help strengthen them in ministry. In this role, he had a time limit - his earthly life. The Advocate whom the Father will send them, he says, will be with them forever, a promise with no close-out clause.

Jesus says this "Spirit of Truth” is a force whom the world - humanity at large - does not see or recognize, and therefore cannot receive. The gift of the Holy Spirit is given to all who have the capacity to receive him – and what increases our capacity is love, giving and receiving love. Athletes and musicians find their capacity for taking in and holding breath increases with practice; it is the same with love. Our capacity grows as we exercise it.

What gets in the way of your ability to receive love?

In what ways do you feel you are inhibited in giving love?
What are some ways you can envision to expand your capacity for love, given and received?

You might try on a discipline of learning to love someone whom you find challenging – start by praying for them each day to be blessed. Is there anyone whose love you keep at a distance, or someone who wants to help you in some way that you won’t allow… can you, as an experiment, allow that person into your life a little more, allow the assistance they could render?

When our capacity to give and receive love increases, it has a ripple effect. Our being more loving invites the people around us to receive more and give more in turn. Imagine if we lived in a culture based on love and more love? Think how many stuck systems and stuck people might be released to function in wholeness.

We don’t have to dwell in such utopian visions – we can start with ourselves, and our own hearts, inviting the Spirit to expand our capacity for love. That's how we participate in God’s bringing the whole universe into Love.

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5-11-20 - Unconditional

You can listen to this reflection here.

I’m not fond of “if” statements where love is concerned. “If” smacks of contracts, and who wants love to be contractual? Especially the love of God, which we’re told is unconditional, not contingent upon our response or behavior?

I’m also not crazy about the word “commandments.” So the first line of this week’s Gospel passage, which continues Jesus’ farewell remarks to his followers before his arrest and crucifixion, has a double whammy: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

On first glance, I read, “Yikes, I’d better be a good girl, if I want Jesus to love me…” A closer look suggests that Jesus means quite the opposite. It’s not, “If you keep my commandments, I will love you.” Or “If you keep my commandments, I will know that you love me." It’s that keeping Jesus' commandments – to love God fully, and my neighbor as myself – is a natural consequence of loving Jesus. First we receive God’s love; our actions flow from that.

How many times do I need to be reminded that this is the order in which grace operates? God’s love is not something we must, or even can, earn. When we say that the love of God is unconditional, not contingent upon our response or behavior, it means we are free to receive it and respond as we will. Some people respond by ignoring it, putting the gift away, still wrapped. Others respond by trying to earn it anyway… which only exhausts us and makes it harder to receive what God wants for us.

When we comprehend how truly “off the hook” we are, and find ourselves in that place of humble gratitude for God’s gift of grace, something is released in us, and we find we want to choose the good, we want to follow Jesus' way, to love all the more, even when it costs us. Jesus says later, “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

What are some times in your life when that grace has gotten through to you? How did you respond?
Those are good moments to remember and dwell in again.
(And if you’re in the “I’d rather earn it, thank you very much – don’t do me any favors,” place, consider how that is or is not giving life to you and those around you.)

Today, we might ask God to show us how his commandment to love might be more fully reflected in our lives. Think about the people you know, in all the places you know them. Where is God inviting you to let divine love flow?

As we pay more attention to “if you love me," then “You will keep my commandments” will become the most natural thing in the world.

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5-8-20 - Great Expectations

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

How did the church’s expectations get so small? Maybe not all churches – some do expect that God will move in power among them. But many of the sort I know best seem to ask very little of God, and operate as though they’re not sure they can count even on that. Yet, listen to what Jesus said:

“Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”

Greater works than what Jesus did? He who transformed water into vats of finest wine, who could extend a snack into a meal for 5,000, who healed the lame and the lepers and gave sight to the blind? He who rose from the dead? It’s impossible. And yet, for a time, after the Spirit came at Pentecost, the apostles did indeed perform works as great – greater, if we figure that divine power was more diluted in them than in Jesus. So what happened?

God still works among us in miraculous ways. Yet many say such things are impossible, or that it’s rude to ask too much of the Lord, as though God’s power were finite. Perhaps one obstacle comes from what Jesus is quoted as saying next, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” And, in case they didn’t get it, “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve asked for things in Jesus’ name that I have not seen manifest. Good things, holy things – healing and restoration, and the gift of faith for those who wanted it. What are we to make of this line? Bad translation? Maybe the writer of John adding things for effect? No, that’s too easy. However this came into our sacred writings, we are invited to deal with it head on.

In part, that means dealing honestly with our disappointment with God for the “unanswered prayers.” It means opening our spirits to the operation of the Holy Spirit so that more and more we pray for what God already intends. Maybe God waits for us to be willing to let God work through us. And it takes really praying in Jesus' name - which means praying in his will, in his Spirit. It means praying His prayer.

It is a fine balance to pray with huge faith and boldness and yet release our desires into the mystery of God’s will. We can only do that from within an honest relationship with God, trusting in God’s love, even when that is hard to feel. That’s why they call it faith.

Name a “great work” you would like God to accomplish. Don’t be timid, don’t be rational – go for broke. An end to the spread of Covid-19? A vaccine? A huge release of generosity, neighbor caring for neighbor? Let God know that today in prayer. Ask the Spirit to help refine that prayer in you until you have an inner conviction that you are praying God’s prayer. If we have to say, “If it is your will,” we don’t have that conviction yet. We can keep praying and keep inviting the Spirit to knead that prayer in us until its ready to rise and become bread.

The only thing I’m sure of is that if we don’t ask, if we don’t step out on the promises of God in faith, we will see only small works. Jesus said it; let’s lean on it. The more we pray, in faith, in the Spirit, the more activity of God we will see. Amen! Let it be so!

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5-7-20 - A Family Likeness

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

We’ve all met children who were the spitting image of one parent – there can be no question whose child they are. That, the scriptures tell us, is how closely Jesus reflected the image of his heavenly Father. Paul wrote, “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.”

(Col. 1:15)

“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” Jesus says when Philip begs, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

“How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.”

Jesus' features may have been Semitic, his language Aramaic, his manners and speech shaped by his Galilean upbringing – but his spiritual authority, his healing power, his supernatural intuition, his relational instincts – those revealed his Father’s life in him.

This family likeness extends to those who are happy to be called his sisters and brothers. As we “put on Christ," as we let his life shine out through us, we grow into his likeness. Or more precisely, we grow more transparent so that the world sees less of us and more of Christ in us – “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” another quote from Paul in Colossians.

I don’t have a cute pop song today, but here’s a link to Disappear, by Bebo Norman, a song about getting out of the way so that God’s life shines through us. "And you become clear as I disappear,” he sings in the refrain.

In whom have you noticed glimpses of God-life? What was it that caught your attention?
When do you feel you best reflect the love of God to the world? When do you feel most in sync with your heavenly nature, the true self you're in the process of discovering? Write it down.

A good prayer any time is, “Lord, increase your life in me. Increase my capacity to receive your life. Let the willfulness in me that obscures people seeing you be brought into alignment with your will, so that when people see me they see you.”

It may take a lifetime to see the answer to that prayer, but we can experience the shift as we pay attention. Weare the only way the world will see Christ this side of glory. And when he is visible in us, people notice, and they want more.

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5-6-20 - If You Don't Know Me By Now...

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

I believe that human beings have a deep need to be known, perhaps even deeper than our need to be loved. After all, real love presumes intimate knowledge of the one we love, all that is wonderful about them and much that is not. So I feel for Jesus when he realizes yet again how little his closest friends have really seen him, recognized his identity, what is most authentic and true about him:

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”

“All this time, and still you do not know me?” Naturally, today’s pop tune link goes to Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes' If You Don’t Know Me By Now.* In fairness to the disciples, though, it must have been very hard to take at face value the things Jesus said about his union with his “father in heaven,” even with the amazing spiritual power he demonstrated. Surely he’s being metaphorical, symbolic, hyperbolic, they thought… Often we say the same things about this One whose truth we can never fully grasp.

No one can grasp the truth about another until we “walk a mile in their shoes.” Our sacred story tells us that Jesus came in human flesh to walk many miles in our shoes. How might we walk in his sandals? By letting his Spirit, whom we name Holy, fill us. By truly being His Body in the world. By entering into conversation with him in prayer, reading about him, talking to other people who know him – the same way we seek to get to know anyone.

Today, in prayer, be bold. Ask Jesus something you want to know about yourself, or about him. Sit in quiet awhile and see if you sense any response – it may not come in words. It may come in an image that you see in your mind, or something around you that catches your eye. It may come later in the day in song lyrics, or in an encounter with someone, in a thought or insight. It may come in words.

And ask Jesus if he has a question for you.

Our Good News departs from the song title in that it’s never too late to get to know Jesus/Y-shua (a few scary parables notwithstanding….) As with any relationship, getting to know him takes an investment of time and vulnerability and desire. Billions of people have found it worthwhile. Meet him for coffee and see where it goes.

* Check this link for the Soul Train live version, with the appliqued pastel jumpsuits – some people really have had to suffer for their art…

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5-5-20 - I Know a Place

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

“I know a place,” sings Mavis Staples, "Ain't nobody cryin', ain't nobody worried; 

Ain't no smilin' faces, lyin' to the races… I’ll take you there."

“And you know the way to the place where I am going,” says Jesus.

Do we? Do we know how to get to that place where pain and anxiety and injustice are no more, where “sorrow and sighing will flee away?” (Isaiah 51) Thomas surely didn’t. Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” 

In a relational system like the Christian faith, everything – places, routes, truth, even life – comes down to a person. And not just any person – the person of Jesus the Anointed, the Christ, whom we claim was the humanly embodied Son of God. More than following a way, assenting to a truth, living a life, as Christ followers we are invited to know Jesus. Knowing Jesus is the Way to know God most fully. Knowing Jesus brings us into a relationship with Truth. Knowing Jesus allows us to fully live that abundant Life he promised.

Of course, scholars have, do and will argue about how exclusive that next sentence was intended to be. Did Jesus really say that, and what did he mean? I prefer to focus on what he said after that: “If you know me, you will know my Father also.” Jesus said he was the Way. Best? Only? Fastest? I don’t know. This is the revelation I have received, so this is where I rest. I seek to know the fullness of God by allowing Jesus into my life in relationship, in conversation, in guidance and healing and love. It'll take me a lifetime (and beyond) to know Jesus. I can appreciate other spiritual ways, but this one is deep enough for me to dwell in.

If we’ve grown up with the notion that God is very close, like a grand-dad sitting in his rocker, then Jesus’ proclamation might have little power. But if, like his hearers, you’ve been taught that God is far and too impossibly holy to be known, then you can understand how radical it was for Jesus to proclaim that God was knowable through knowing him.

How do you know Jesus? Through prayer? From books? Stained glass windows? Movies? Bible study?
How well do you want to know Jesus? I sometimes feel I hold him at arms’ length… too scary somehow.

If we say to God in prayer, “I’d like to know you more,” the Spirit will begin to reveal God to us. I don’t know in what way – if you offer that prayer, you might keep a prayer notebook to write down whatever you experience in coming to know God better.

I do believe God wants to be known. That is why Jesus came like us – so we could at least recognize him enough to draw near. And when we draw near to that place… there is God.

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5-4-20 - Somewhere

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

There’s a place for us; somewhere a place for us.
Hold my hand and we’re halfway there; hold my hand, and I’ll take you there…

Somewhere. A place for us. In the musical version of Jesus’ last night with his disciples, maybe he’d break into song (actually, I’m reminded of a lot of pop songs in this passage… stay tuned this week.). He is trying to comfort his followers as they begin to grasp how soon he will be taken from them.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”

If only we could believe it when people say they’re coming back for us. If small children could trust that mom’s not disappearing for good, they’d need fewer blankets and bears. If young women could trust that men really do just “want space” and aren’t taking a permanent hike, there’d be a lot less drama in social media – and bad love songs. We can’t believe what we can’t conceive – and how could Jesus’ friends conceive of a place “out there” with him and many dwelling places and plenty of room for everyone?

How can we? This passage is often read at funerals. Presumably it comforts the bereaved to know their loved one has a front-door key on a hook somewhere – although I doubt anyone who is enjoying pure being has much use for a zip code. We like to know where our people are, to imagine them somewhere. Maybe we like to imagine ourselves somewhere, so people have taken the few symbolic hints about heaven in the bible, and worked them into a whole city with golden streets and gem-encrusted gates.

I’m not quite old enough to be concerned about having real estate in the afterlife. I know that I can start living that life where I am now. We can access those heavenly places in all kinds of ways – in worship, prayer, intimate conversation, a walk on a fine day – anywhere, any time we feel connected to Jesus, in the presence and light and love of God.

What is your view of the afterlife – your afterlife?
Where and how do you best find yourself in touch with God in the here and how?
Is that anything like the heaven you imagine? In prayer today we might ask the Spirit to make us aware of the Somewhere God intends for us to dwell in - and to reveal it in our lives now. .

We are invited to live already as though we know that place, that Somewhere, where Jesus is, where God is. And when we live out that belief, that conviction, we bring it into being in the here and now. Then forgiveness and love and giving our stuff away to people who need it become a lot more natural – we’re living the life of heaven.

Somewhere. We'll find a new way of living, We'll find a way of forgiving... Somewhere …
Somewhere is here, my friends. Some time is already. May the Fourth be with you!

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5-1-20 - The Abundant Community

You can listen to this reflection here.

Abundance has its drawbacks, I reflect between sneezes. The spring growth that bedecks our trees in pink and green also generates a super-abundance of pollen. You can have too much of some things. When a whole community is living the abundant life, it generates as much growth as the trees in my yard. Sunday’s reading from Acts about the early church gives us a glimpse (perhaps slightly idealized…) of just how beautiful and fruitful abundance can look like in community:

Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.

It’s a simple recipe for the good life – and yet most Christ-followers find it impossible to live this way. This is a puzzle, and a shame, for observers outside the faith have pointed out how much more appealing Christianity would be if its followers were more Christ-like. (Mahatma Gandhi was perhaps the most noted, saying, “Oh, I don't reject Christ. I love Christ. It's just that so many of you Christians are so unlike Christ.”)

Oh well... even that early community didn’t remain long focused on mutuality and abundance. We read in Acts that very soon, someone withheld some of the proceeds of a land sale, and lied about it, which was the more community-breaking act. Conflict and scarcity raised their ugly heads.

Should we conclude this is an impossible ideal? I hope not. All it takes is one person to recommit to living the abundant life. Two is even better. They can influence others, who decide to reorder their lives, and on it goes. Sociologists have shown that human behavior is remarkably contagious. Greed, fear, and control have had a pretty good run... might we regain some ground for love, faith and peace?

• If you listed yesterday the things and people who steal your goodwill, peace, confidence and joy; and those that help you gain those gifts, you have a blueprint for action. 
• If you’re in a covenant relationship with someone else, hold each other accountable when the “scarcity thinking” starts to mess with your abundant joy. 

And as our communities commit to live this way - especially during times of economic hardship - increasing our capacity to trust that resources we need will be there when we need them; to stop and shift whenever we begin to make a decision based on our fear of scarcity – we will grow, in faith, in joy, and even in people.

Abundant life has a generative principle – abundance generates more abundance. That passage from Acts ends with this: “And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” If we mourn the scarcity of people in our pews, let’s take on the discipline of abundant living and abundant trusting. Few things are more attractive than someone living at peace and trusting in “enough.”

When all the energy in the tree is focused on pushing out buds, it bursts into flower. And when all the energy in our communities is focused on living into Jesus’ promise of Life in abundance, we’ll burst into flower too. That's nothin' to sneeze at...

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