Water Daily: December 2023

1-1-24 - New Year, Every Day

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

Why the fuss over a turn of the calendar? Isn’t it the same revolution in the same orbit around the same sun that we traverse every day and night and day again? Time doesn’t march; it rolls us ever into a new place in the same old space, over and over.

Ah, but who doesn’t yearn for a new beginning?

Church time rolls in circles too. This week we return to that Jordan River where we saw John baptizing people – only now we are further along in the story, and see Jesus himself come out to be baptized. We will explore this week what baptism is and means, but above all it offers new life, the birth of the new creation we are in Christ.

On this New Years Day, take some time to ask yourself:
What in your life do you wish was new?
What feels old or stale or over?
Where do you see new life emerging, inside of you, outside of you?
What life do you yearn for?

Invite God into the answers and the questions, the joys and the yearning.

One promise of baptism is that we were made new once, and somehow are being made new all the time. Pray to be connected with your baptismal self. That person exists, right here and now. She or he may be sharing space with a whole lot of other selves, but that baptismal self of ours is a holy, eternal creation.

What if we spent some time each morning inviting our baptismal self into the foreground? How might it change the way we interact with the day and the people we encounter in it? How might it change the way we treat ourselves?

Faith and even ministry may not always begin with baptism, but each Christian traces membership in the eternal Body of Christ back to that river Jordan, back to that water of life. Let’s go down to the river again.

Blessed New Year!

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12-29-23 - Word Embodied

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

What good are words if they’re never put into action?
What good is a God you cannot see?

I rejoice in worshipping a God who made herself visible. God may have hoped humanity would understand his nearness and feel his love through messages and messengers, but in the fullness of time God entered human life in a radical way, specifically and particularly. That is the heart of this week’s good news for me:

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

That word “dwelt” can be rendered “abided with” or, most literally “pitched tent among.” The story of God, so far away, so holy, so “other,” moving into our neighborhood and settling down so that we can draw near – that’s a story that never gets old. I feel frustrated in how to convey it as Good News to a people for whom it has become hum-drum, and to others for whom “God” is entirely irrelevant, but I believe it is the heart of the gift Christians have for the world.

I know it’s hard for us to “see” that Word made flesh in our time, risen and ascended into heaven as he is, but through his Spirit we are able to know him in relationship, we can see him in other people. I will continue to seek to get inside that mystery and discover the “Word made flesh” who wants to know me and be known by me.

As Madeleine L’Engle wrote in her poem, “First Coming” (printed in full in the note I sent Christmas Day):

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

12-28-23 - Becoming Children

You can listen to this reflection here.

Some say that Christmas is for children; as we age the anticipation dims, the mystery dissipates. We affirm with our minds what all the fuss is about, but we also know it will come around again. I was already a little jaded by college, writing in my journal, “I can’t get more excited about Christ being born just because the calendar says December 25th than I am the other 364 days of the year.”

But for children, Christmas is often a heightened time - the growing pile of presents under the tree, the dazzling ornaments, special treats baked only once a year, dressing up and staying up, the pageant and the carols. I remember Christmas; what would it be like to feel that wonder again?

Jesus said we had to become like children to receive the kingdom of God. In the prologue to John’s Gospel, which we’re exploring this week, we learn how that happens: But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

Power to become children of God – what an interesting phrase. We don’t always associate power with childhood. And who can get themselves born, especially by the will of God? That is something over which we have no power whatsoever. And yet that is the paradox of faith – when we exercise our will to believe in Christ, by faith, not sight, we receive power to give our power away. When we give our power away in vulnerability and trust (I’m not talking about when it’s taken by force…), we are more free to receive.

As I write about the wonder of childhood, I am reminded that today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, which recalls the slaying of two-year-old boys in Judea at the order of a paranoid King Herod (Matthew 2). It’s hard not to think of the children being killed, maimed or orphaned in Gaza or the Ukraine at present, or Israeli children who witnessed the massacres and kidnappings by Hamas on October 7. Childhood gives cause for wonderment of all sorts, not just beauty. But as children do, we can process death and tragedy within relationships of trust, such as God invites us into.

I pray for the grace to receive the gift of wonder and joy and openness available to children; adulthood isn’t always much fun. And maybe that’s the point – adulthood is where we live; childhood – in its best sense – is like that realm of God that coexists with this world. As we let our faith grow, we get to spend more time in that land of wonder, where things are always new again and mysteries present themselves for the unwrapping.

God has so many gifts for us; we need to receive them with hands outstretched like a child catching snowflakes.

12-27-23 - Witnessing To Light

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

The cosmic first paragraph of John’s gospel ends with a declaration for all time: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

And then the writer brings us down to earth with a thud, introducing his first human character. One might expect that person to be this Word, this Life, this Light, but no – the first one to be mentioned is John the Baptist:

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

A little later in the Gospel, we will hear John himself clarify his identity as one who testifies, who is not himself the light. John was God’s messenger, and like all God’s messengers, he pointed not to himself, but to the Life of God. In the darkness of his era, he pointed to the Light.

Many perceive a deep darkness in our current age, as the gap between rich and poor grows ever wider, human rights are narrowed, and despots stoke nationalistic fervor in their followers. In response to global and national events, some careen from outrage to terror to disgust at seeing basic freedoms jeopardized by strongmen who seem to delight in division and destruction, who privilege the already privileged at the expense of the vulnerable, and seem to glory in the devastation humankind is wreaking on the wondrous beauty of this world and its creatures. It can be hard to be hopeful.

On the personal plane, depression and addiction, suicide and despair are disconcertingly prevalent, while the resources for helping those caught in these cycles get stretched thinner. As mistrust among people and with religious organizations grows, the sense of darkness enshrouding us gets stronger. What about that light who has overcome the darkness?

Yes. The Light of the world is still here. He still resides in us, and we are still called to testify to the reality of him, and not only when we feel like it. As it was for John, it needs to become part of our deepest identity. If we trust the Light is real, the Light is true, the Light is here; if we have seen Christ shine light into shadow places, to heal and restore and renew what is broken; then we have testimony to offer.

And boy, do we need to hear it. It can be hard to see where hope lies. When the clouds gather, I need to remember that this is my call, my mission, not just as an ordained person but as a Christ follower. In fact, I once head God tell me in prayer that I was to develop my ability to see in the dark. To do that, I have to trust in the Light I carry.

What is the darkest place you know of right now? Who is in the deepest despair?
Go, and testify there to the Light you know, the light you have known. Perhaps that is all the church is supposed to be doing right now, testifying to the Light who is Jesus. This Light has an interesting property - it gets brighter and stronger in this world the more we point it out. Everybody wins.

12-26-23 - Love In the Abstract

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

How do you take your theology? Straight up or with a twist? Abstract or concrete? Philosophy or narrative? The gospels are flexible enough to incorporate many learning styles.

On Christmas Eve, we are steeped in story, personal and intimate, sweeping and glorious, each element a rich vein of symbol and language to convey how much God loves us. And then, on the first Sunday after Christmas, we make a sharp turn to the prologue of the Gospel of John, which is as abstract as a love story could possibly get.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Right off the bat, we are invited to suspend our literal mindedness (“how can something be with God and be God?”) and enter a swirl of words that convey a truth. What does “Word” mean? Most likely “logos,” translated as “word,” means something closer to “mind” or the “primal thought” of God. Does that make it more or less confusing?

That first paragraph tells the whole story – of what was before we were, of creation, of life and light, and light overcoming darkness. In theological language, we see the doctrines of God, Creation, Incarnation, Salvation – all in a few short lines.

But on Boxing Day, who is thinking about theological doctrines? Some of us are cleaning up, putting out bags of torn Christmas wrap. We may be enjoying another day with family and friends, or just resting from the frenzy. I hope no one is taking down Christmas decorations, as we have a full ten days more of Christmas to celebrate. (That siren you hear is the liturgical police ready to pull you over….)

If you take some devotional time today, you might read over the passage several times, slowly, and see where you get snagged. If something is confusing, take note. If something is pleasing, read that part again. What is the overall sense you come away with? What is the heart of the passage?

However it is that you best comprehend the story of God’s amazing love and desire to be close to you, I hope you are both shaken and stirred.

12-22-23 - God of the Impossible

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

Did Mary have a choice to decline the mission conferred upon her by God? The Angel Gabriel didn’t really ask; he just announced what was to happen. And yet they did have a conversation, and the angel gave her information which might have helped her get to that grace-filled “yes”: “And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Elizabeth, John the Baptist's mother, became pregnant with him long after she was “in the way of women,” and after a lifetime of infertility and its stigma. Though her conception was “normal," the timing was miraculous enough to comfort Mary that the angel's strange message truly came from God.

We need to be reminded there are no limits to what God can do, because we spend so much time in the realm of limits. And because we see so many situations in which we yearn to see the unlimited power of God break out, and it doesn’t seem to. If all things are possible with God, why can tyrants invade small countries and devastate the lives of civilians? Why are corporations given tax breaks (handouts) while benefits to the poor and vulnerable are gutted? If all things are possible with God, why have so many sweet children and their teachers died in mass shootings in schools, and an average 33 more killed with guns daily in America? If God can do all things, why don’t we always see the healing we yearn for?

Those are all good questions – yet they lead nowhere but to a diminished faith. We are invited to believe in infinite possibilities despite the limits we perceive. We are invited to pray to the God for whom all things are possible… and then to ask how we are to be part of God's response.

I don't know what to do about tyrants but pray for them and give aid to their victims. I certainly don’t know what to do about Congress but pray for profound conversion of heart for those who pass unjust laws. I do know that gun violence can be reduced through sensible laws as well as culture change, and I can be part of that solution. And praying for healing within the overall confines of life and death means accepting that the outcomes of our prayers exist on that continuum as well. That isn’t meant to sound facile; that our prayers are not always answered in the way we desire doesn’t mean they aren’t sometimes answered that way. Each of those “sometimes” is an occasion to strengthen our faith.

What “impossibility” are you facing right now? Are you willing to invite God to work with it, turn it over, squish and mold it like clay, bend it like time and perhaps reveal a deeper mystery of “yes” in it? Are you willing to have your boundaries of the possible stretched? Pray in that today. Ask God to show you where God has placed limits, and where you’re just assuming they exist.

The story of Jesus’ incarnation through Mary of Nazareth is beautiful in so many ways, not the least for how decisively God overturns the “laws” of nature to bring about the overturning of death and sin and disease and injustice, ending the enslavement of this world to darkness. All that happens because Mary joined in the mission of God in the way she could, in the way she was asked. Jesus would continue to overturn those laws in his adult ministry. And, of course, on Easter morning, the God of the impossible demonstrated once again just how infinite his power is.

Nothing is impossible with God. The more we believe it, the further our boundaries of “possibility” will be stretched, and the deeper we will join in God's mission of restoration. And the deeper we go, the more impossible things we see.

12-21-23 - Girl Power

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

This story is so outrageous; who would invent it? Why would you make up an immaculate conception? If the idea of sexual union troubled you, you’d probably want to avoid the whole reproductive system, right? You wouldn’t write it right into the story of God!

But a young woman’s reproductive system is right smack dab in the middle of our salvation story. The conception may have been immaculate, but nothing after that was. To put it crudely, we get no Incarnation without a woman’s plumbing.

The angel said to her, “And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.” ... Mary said .., “How can this be, since I am a virgin?"

Certain charges were leveled at early Christian thinkers and church leaders, that they were flesh-denying and anti-woman, weaving a conspiracy of suppression. Some might have been, but you can’t honestly derive such a view from our Gospels. If that was your agenda, why would you tell the story of the Messiah’s emergence through a woman’s birth canal? Why would all four Gospels agree that the first person to see Jesus risen from the dead was a woman? Why would the Gospels show Jesus’ friendship with and trust in women?

Right here at the heart of our story is a young woman, whom we today would consider still a girl – and she is the agent through whom God is revealed to human eyes. Imagine! AND SHE SAYS YES! Did she really have a choice? Luke tells us unmistakably that she chose: Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

“Here am I.” That’s a statement of identity and presence. Here am I. What if we started each day with those words? “Here am I, world! Here am I, God!”
“The servant of the Lord.” That’s a statement of relationship and mission. Mary wasn’t asking what God had done for her lately; she self-identified as God’s servant and proclaimed it boldly.
“Let it be to me as you have said.” I accept. I know what you’re asking, I know in part what it’s going to cost me, and I accept. Amen – let it be.

That’s a powerful young woman! That’s an agent of change! Even before the canticle of radical reversal and equality that’s attributed to Mary in the Magnificat (or, if you prefer it sung, here's Rutter's...), right here we see girl power to the nth degree, a formidable young woman who will carry, and bear, and raise, and lose our beloved Jesus – and then receive him back, though only in part, and never to keep.

I’ve never thought of the story of the Anunication as an anthem of women’s empowerment, but just writing this fills me with energy. I want to go out and tell every young girl I know: Look at this girl! Look how calm and clear and powerful she is! There is power in serving others, in offering ourselves – if we recognize our own worth in the process.

Maybe you know a young woman whom you can affirm today, remind of her value. So many forces in our culture rob young women of their sense of worth. (Fashion industry? Social media? Advertising?) How might we join with others to overcome or undermine those forces? God chose a young girl for God’s greatest mission. She said yes. Girl power rocked the world! It still does.

12-20-23 - Say What?!

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

I don’t know that I would want to hear that I had found favor with God… God’s favor can come with a request for a favor! In the case of Mary of Nazareth, a rather big one: to allow her body to be the vessel for the Son of the Most High.

The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Did Mary hear anything after the words “womb” and “son?” Where would you even start with an announcement like this? With the pregnancy? The predictions of greatness, of divinity, of Messiah-ship? That’s what “the throne of his ancestor David” means – and no doubt Mary understood the code. Or would you focus on the words “reign” and “kingdom?” I don’t know that I would have heard any of it – this was an angel speaking! My senses would already have hit “tilt.”

So even more credit goes to young Mary for not only taking it in, but responding in a most down-to-earth, matter-of-fact way: “How?” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” How indeed? Gabriel’s answer is short on details, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you…”

Mary is left to sort through the words, the past, the future, the fear, the excitement, the bafflement. She ignores the grand and cosmic mystery of identity about this coming child, and focuses on the reality closest to her: her body. This wondrous event is to take place in her body – a body that, she reminds the angel, has not experienced sexual intimacy. Is she to endure the wear and tear of childbearing before she’s had the pleasure of child-begetting?

How will this be? How indeed does God work through the frail and fallible flesh of any person? Mary’s mission may be the most intimate in our whole crazy story of redemption, but every part of that story involves God working through a person. People are asked to yield their time, livelihood, home, safety, security, voice, identity… They are called to make themselves available to the Spirit of God.

Us too. What has God asked of you, probable or improbable, difficult or simple? This is a small example, but it was a big deal for me to yield my space and my schedule when my mother moved in with me last spring – and at times I gave it grudgingly. What aspects of your life and self have you made available to the Holy One to fill and use? What have you held back? What are you willing to offer?

In prayer today we can work through a litany of “oblation,” offering in turn our minds, our bodies, our time, our gifts, our resources, our relationships, our networks, and, of course, our spirits. (Here is a form to help you.) As we offer each area, we might wait for a word on how God wants to use that in us.

Mary was called to be a vessel of Christ’s body, to bear him into the world. We are called to be vessels of Christ’s spirit, to bear him into the world in our own ways and circumstances. That includes our bodies as well as everything else that makes us who we are. We can invite the Spirit to fill us – and then see how we make space for grace.

12-19-23 - An Angle on Angels

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

Have you ever seen an angel? Some see them in childhood, and I've heard of people having what they believed were angelic encounters as adults. I was once praying in a chapel when it seemed filled with a presence that was distinctly “other,” and I was terrified. Was that an angel?

In the bible, angels show up with messages to deliver. The angel Gabriel (one of only two angels named in scripture) was busy in the months leading up to Jesus’ birth. First he appeared in the temple to tell Zechariah that he and his wife, long barren and now past childbearing age, will have a son whom they are to name John. And six months into Elizabeth’s unlikely pregnancy, he comes to Mary in Nazareth to announce a pregnancy that is downright impossible.

And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Only an angel could deliver a message that bizarre and, if you’ll allow it, inconceivable. But that’s when angels seem to be deployed, when God has a specific message or charge for a particular person. Prophets are human messengers for God, usually with messages for a whole community. Angels are heavenly messengers tasked with things like announcing miraculous births – three angels tell Abram and Sarai about her impending and unlikely pregnancy.

What do we know about angels? The Old and New Testaments speak of them as heavenly creatures, neither divine nor human. They deliver difficult messages and occasionally do battle with the forces of evil. They are not cute or cuddly or necessarily looking out for us – they work for God. They are often fierce and, it appears, always fearsome, for every angelic encounter seems to begin with, “Be not afraid…”

Should we pay any attention to angels? I can’t imagine they want us to, nor to be worn on pins and or smile on us from posters. They certainly do not want to be prayed to. Their function is to point our attention to what God is up to.

The angelic realm is somewhat peripheral to being a Christ-follower, but it is good to consider where we are on the subject of angels. If we consider them intermediaries with God, we might forge a more direct connection. If we want protection, maybe we can invite the Holy Spirit to be more discernibly present in our lives. If we want a message, we can ask for it in prayer. If we want to be able to relate to God more personally – well, that’s why Jesus came in the first place. Let’s get to know him better. The one thing I feel reasonably sure of is this: If we should be “touched by an angel,” we’ll know it.

12-18-23 - The Virgin

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

It’ll be the shortest human gestation period in history. This year, the Fourth Sunday of Advent falls on Christmas Eve. At church in the morning (join me online at 10 am EST…) we’ll hear about Mary’s becoming mystically (and also actually….) pregnant. A few hours later we'll celebrate the wondrous birth of her baby, Jesus. And why not? Of all the takeaways from this story, perhaps the greatest is the angel Gabriel’s exit line: “For nothing is impossible with God.”

We meet Mary, a young woman betrothed to a man named Joseph, right about the time she meets the Angel Gabriel: In the sixth month [of Elizabeth’s pregnancy with John, who would grow up to be the Baptist…] the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.”

Who was this Mary? Luke tries to make a decent introduction with the “where-when-who." She lived in Galilee, considered by many a low-rent backwater of Judean provinces. Scripture says nothing of her economic circumstances or her family – which doesn’t stop later generations from naming her parents Anna and Joachim and designating them saints.

We are told that she is a virgin, an awfully intimate detail to learn about one we’ve just met. Maybe Luke just meant her unmarried state, where we might find the word “maiden” more decorous – but her virginity does figure into the story.

We learn that this young woman is engaged to a man called Joseph – and that his ancestry is significant: He descends from Israel's legendary King David, from whose line many believed the Messiah would come. As Jesus' earthly father, Joseph will provide his Davidic lineage. That lineage also gets him and his betrothed to Bethlehem, David’s ancestral town, where prophecies said the Messiah would be born.

We'll save for another day the encounter between Mary and this angel. Today let’s focus on the girl, this girl who has been so adored and so worshiped and so controversial for so many generations. In many ways she is a screen onto which people project their own wishes and identities. We know little about her beyond these biographical details – and the amazing grace with which she considers the angel’s announcement and comes to a quiet “Yes,” a "yes" staggering in its humility and vulnerability.

It is that “yes” which has led some to attribute supernatural qualities to her – sinlessness, saintliness, even divinity. Such ideas are not only unbiblical - they undermine the power of her story for us: That God chose an ordinary girl for an extraordinary ministry, and that she chose to accept the mission and let it shape her life. Were it not for Mary, there would be no Jesus of Nazareth as we know him. God might have found another way, but this is the way our story is revealed. Mary is the woman who bore God for us.

Today in prayer we might contemplate Mary, however she appears in our mind’s eye. Imagine her in her room when the angel appears, and play through the story. (Here is a powerful painting of that scene by Henry Ossawa Tanner, if you want some help...) Or go even deeper and imagine yourself in that position. What would you think? Say? Do?

However we enter her story, let us give thanks to Mary, or for her, for the gift she gave us. In a small way we share her mission – to allow the Spirit to fill us with life, a life not wholly our own but mingled with ours to create a new person, the Christ who comes to set all people free; and then to bear that Christ into the world.

12-15-23 - People, Get Ready

You can listen to this reflection here.

Today let’s switch to Sunday’s passage from the Hebrew bible – Isaiah’s prophecy of restoration and fulfillment. This is what Jesus read the first time he taught in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth – and then shocked them all by announcing, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” It is also a wonderful description of the ministry of John the Baptist:

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God…

Luke’s gospel tells us that God’s Spirit was upon John even before his birth, as he leapt in in his mother Elizabeth’s womb when her cousin Mary came to see her, pregnant with Jesus. They may not have met again for many years, but Jesus was very much around when John was exercising his ministry at the Jordan, ultimately coming to him to be baptized himself. And though John’s message was more fierce than comforting, it was Good News he was announcing, Good News that God was near, on the move, coming soon, already here – and people better get ready. (Here’s Curtis Mayfield on that subject… and a newer version by Joss Stone.)

Believe it or not, this is also an aspect of John’s ministry that we share, united as we are with Christ, filled with God’s Holy Spirit. That good news of release and justice and favor is now ours to deliver to this hurting world. We are the Jesus Movement, participating in God’s great mission to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness in Christ. This ministry has a personal dimension, to be sure, and also a global, societal one. Here’s what is promised for those whom the Lord has anointed to bring Good News:

They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display God’s glory.
They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.

God is already at work building up the ancient ruins, the ruined cities, healing the former devastations. This vision may strike us as ludicrous, aware as we are of how actively humankind is causing more ruin to the earth and its cities, but this is the promise we proclaim, the promise we live into, the promise we are bringing into being.

Where are you being called to be an “oak of righteousness” this year?

Who is "God’s planting" in your life? What ruins are you in the process of helping to repair, whether on a street or in someone’s heart?

People, get ready, there’s a train a-comin’,
It's picking up passengers from coast to coast.
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin’;
You don’t need no ticket, you just thank the Lord.

Are you ready?

12-14-23 - Water and Oil

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

The temple authorities sent a delegation to investigate John’s ministry because they needed to know by what authority he was operating. Having established that he was not an earthly incarnation of a holy figure, they wanted to know, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”

Once more, John does not answer their question directly, saying rather, "I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal."

It would be easier to grasp if the writer of John’s gospel had used the fuller quote the other three evangelists cite: “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

In that version, the water baptism John offered is contrasted with the Spirit baptism Jesus will initiate. In effect, his reply to the questioners is, “It doesn’t matter who I am, really – I’m not the main event. My baptism in water as a sign of repentance is just preparing people to receive the much more powerful, transforming baptism of Spirit – and that will come from someone already in your midst, whom you do not recognize, whose sandals I am unworthy even to untie.”

When we are baptized into the Christian faith, what matters most is the gift of the Spirit. Too many modern baptismal rituals emphasize the water and are weak on conveying the Spirit, which is symbolized by the oil of chrism with which candidates are anointed. In some early Christian rites, the oil was so important, candidates were covered with it. Both elements are crucial to the sacrament of baptism, and our celebration of that sacrament is enhanced when the “sign value” is enlarged, the quantities and gestures expansive enough to convey the power that is being invoked and invited into our midst.

We can feel the water; that’s important. It symbolizes both the cleansing of a bath and a drowning in which our natural selves die, and our eternal, spiritual selves are born as the union of our spirits with Christ’s spirit. The gift of Spirit, though, cannot be felt with our senses, except through that little dab of oil on the forehead, but that is where everything we need to live in God-Life is bestowed on us.

If we were christened as infants, we may not remember our baptisms, but this baptism of Spirit can be relived, re-experienced as often as we’re willing to pray, “Come, Holy Spirit. Fill me. Guide me. Work through me.”

Like John, we point to the One by whom our works are made possible. We are not worthy to untie his shoe laces – yet he has seen fit to stoop to us, to dwell with us, to dwell in us. That gift is forever.

12-13-23 - Crying Out In Wilderness

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

John the Baptist would have made a good secret agent – under interrogation, he didn’t give away much. Once the temple leaders investigating him established that he was not the Messiah, Elijah, nor “the prophet,” they pressed on: “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

John might have answered, “I am the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, of the priestly line of Aibjah, born in the hill country of Judea when my parents were too old to have children… I am a preacher in the desert…” But rather than a standard biography, he offers this cryptic tidbit: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord,”’ as the prophet Isaiah said.

The identity John claims is that of “voice.” Not maker, builder, preacher, baptizer, but “voice.” A lonely voice at that, crying out for people to make a straight way for the Lord. Why in the wilderness? Because no one would have heard him above the din of the city? Because people needed to come away from their distractions to focus on his message? Because that’s where the river was?

Those who speak the truth are often lonely voices in wild places. Think about a time when you have heard someone speak truth that shook your soul or ignited your mind… where were you? What made it possible for you to hear that word? Were you away from your routines, your busyness?

And what message from God do you have for your fellow humankind? What urgent news do you want to share? Are you called to a “wild place” to share that? Wilderness doesn’t have to look like desert – an empty kitchen that used to be full of children can be a wilderness; a hospital waiting room can be a wilderness; a mall parking lot a desert. Where are you called to bring your voice of truth and love?

It seems absurd on the face of it, a voice crying out in the wilderness. Who the heck is going to hear it? But John’s audience came to him, flocking out of the city, listening and responding. When we share the message God wants to give through us, the people who need to hear it will find us. Our wildernesses will become community; our voices will be heard.

12-12-23 - Who Are We Not?

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

It may be hard for us to understand the excitement that John the Baptist’s appearance in the Judean wilderness unleashed among the people of Israel. After centuries of oppression under a succession of foreign armies, years of exile still a distinct memory, the people of God were desperate for a deliverer. That desire became conflated with prophecies about a Messiah. In a time of religious foment, anyone who seemed to have spiritual power drew attention. And any time a spiritual person came into the limelight, the religious leaders needed to check him out. (“Hims” are all we hear about…) So it was that the religious authorities investigated and interrogated John.

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ”Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”

He doesn’t answer their first question, “Who are you?” directly, but instead answers the question he knows they are asking. “I’ll tell you who I’m not – I am not the Messiah.” That must have been refreshing to hear, in an age when many falsely claimed that title.

They press on, asking if he is the prophet Elijah returned to the life of this world – the Bible records no physical death for Elijah; we’re told he was taken up in a whirlwind, so people looked for his return and John seemed to fit the bill. “Are you the prophet?,” probably meaning Moses. He answers “no” to all these, and never answers the question, “Who are you.” John defines himself – at least to these interrogators – by who he is not.

Is there something in this for us? We’re encouraged to become aware of who we are in our deepest and truest selves, and there is something holy in that. Yet part of that work involves knowing who we are not. We are not our mothers or fathers; we are not the people we most admire or fear to be. We are ourselves, with our unique mix of gifts and flaws and baggage and circumstances.

And we need to know who we are not spiritually – not the One in charge; not the savior; not the healer or prophet, though we may be conduits of God's power to heal and speak God’s truth. Recovery from addiction and co-dependency often involves stepping out of such false roles.

Self-knowledge is grounded in humility and clarity. Treasuring who it is that God has made us to be, and being clear about who that is, allows us to become even more fully ourselves in God’s grace, and even more fully freed of all that is not.

I will tell again the story of a little girl who stopped on her way home from school every day to chat with a sculptor making a statue in a park. Over the months she watched as the block of marble became a discernible figure, and finally one day, when he was almost finished, said, “Hey mister, how did you know there was a lion in there?”

All that was not "lion" had been chiseled away. Who do you say that you’re not?

12-11-23 - Reflecting Light

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

We’re going to spend another week with John the Baptist, as the lectionary appoints a second passage about him. But we shift perspective to John’s gospel, which often offers a different angle on familiar bible stories and characters.

The Fourth Gospel begins in the cosmic realm, “In the beginning was the Word… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among humankind, full of grace and truth.” But it soon narrows its focus to the human sphere, zeroing in on John: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

John the Baptist was such a focused and holy man, people wondered if he were the long-awaited Messiah. He made it clear that he was not, that he was only the advance man for the revelation of Christ, to prepare people’s hearts and set the stage so people would recognize and receive Christ when he came. He was not himself the Light; he bore testimony to the Light that was coming into the world.

Just as we all share John’s ministry to prepare people for Jesus’ coming into their lives, we also share this aspect of his ministry: to bear witness to the Light, that others might believe. We are not the source of light or truth or life – we bear witness to it, and at our best we reflect it. Any time we draw people’s attention to our own goodness or faith or opinions or holiness, we in a sense usurp Christ’s light. We are meant to be mirrors, not light fixtures, and for that we need to keep our glass clean.

One might say we share the ministry of the moon, which is not itself light, not the light generator, but bears witness to the sun, reflecting light that can be seen in the darkness. In our current dark times, our ministry as those who reflect God’s light (Son-Light?) is all the more urgent.

Think about the worlds in which you are being called to testify to the Light. Are people seeing God’s light, or your own? What cleansing needs to happen so that we reflect God’s light even more powerfully?

In an odd bit of free-association, U2’s song, Mysterious Ways, makes me think of John the Baptist. Perhaps I read about a link in a book about Christian themes in U2 songs (One Step Closer), or maybe I made it for myself, but there’s something about, “Johnny, take a walk with silver the moon,” that makes me think of John, whose ministry must have been a lonely one. And the lyric,
To touch is to heal, to hurt is to steal/
If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel
Is one way to render John’s message of repentance and return.

The One whose ways are most mysterious is the Spirit of God, who can make the Light of Christ visible even in moons as pale as we sometimes are.

12-8-23 - Baptized In Spirit

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

The baptism that John the Baptist administered in the Jordan River was more than a bath, though not precisely what we know as baptism. This ritual submersion symbolically enacted the spiritual work of repentance entered into by those who flocked to hear John’s message. Perhaps it was akin to the mikveh known in Judaism today. John knew this was a rite of preparation, not the whole deal.

John had a mission: to help people prepare for a revelation of God no one could truly anticipate, not even John. Who could imagine God embodied before beholding that mystery? John only knew that the One to come was more powerful and holy than could be conceived. He had just one job: to invite repentance, a clearing of spiritual space. His water ritual could convey that reality. Beyond that was another baptism that only Christ could effect: baptism with the Holy Spirit.

He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

What does it mean to be “baptized with the Holy Spirit?” Pentecostals' use of that language can make “mainline religious" folks kind of twitchy. But here it is, right in the gospels. What does it mean? Some see it as being filled with the Holy Spirit to the point where there is a discernible manifestation like speaking in tongues or prophesying or power to heal. This was what it meant to Paul’s Corinthian congregations, who were very focused on discernible manifestations of the Spirit’s power.

What might “baptism in the Spirit” mean to us? Let’s try a thought experiment. Imagine being submerged in water. Let yourself experience it in your mind. What happens when you sink into deep water? You get wet all over; the water even gets into your nose and mouth. Depending on temperature differential with the air, you might find yourself pleasantly warmed or cooled, refreshed, comforted. You find yourself supported by the water’s density; it’s not all up to you.

Let’s assume that’s what baptism in the Spirit means: we are drenched and filled with the Spirit of the Living God, uniting with our spirit to fill us with God-Life. We might find ourselves getting very warm, or cool – we feel energy coming into us, and we are refreshed. We find ourselves in the presence of another Presence – we are not alone; we are conduits for power from outside us. It’s not all up to us.

I wish more Christians would crave being filled with the Holy Spirit, would ardently seek spiritual gifts to support them in the ministries to which they feel called. The Holy Spirit is the Gift that gives more gifts, always replenishing us – as we ask. For some reason, the Spirit seems to want invitation.

If you desire a deeper experience of the Holy Spirit, pray for it. Be open to the sensations you might experience. Be open to not experiencing anything in that moment – you might realize something has changed down the line.

The Holy Spirit is our gift at baptism, renewed in eucharist, replenished whenever we are active in God’s mission to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation. In fact, the Spirit is how we find ourselves reclaimed, restored and renewed.

12-7-23 - All the Rage

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

Imagine people taking buses out of town to hear some wild guy in the desert rail about sin, lining up to get dunked in a river as a sign of repentance. Imagine people lining up to get into a church. Oh, wait, that does happen, some places… Religion can still draw crowds, but it’s less and less common.

What was it that drew throngs out to the wilderness to see John? I’m sure he was some spectacle… but what was it about him that caused them to respond?

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

Jesus asked the crowds much the same question, years later. In Luke’s Gospel we read that after John had languished in Herod’s prison for years, he sent some of his followers to ask Jesus if he was the one they'd been waiting for; doubts must have crept into his mind. Jesus cites as evidence the miraculous healings and transformations that people around him were experiencing… and then he takes the crowd to task about John. “Who did you go out there to see?” he asks. “A reed swaying in the wind? A man dressed in fine clothes?”

What did they go out there to see? Was it John’s fierceness? In Mark’s telling, John is pretty mild; in Matthew and Luke he appears more like a wild man, raging about judgment and fire. “The ax is already laid at the root of the trees,” he thunders. “The one who is coming after me will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” And still they came, still they repented, still they were baptized. Scared straight? Maybe… Or perhaps they responded to his holiness.

John had a remarkable clarity about his mission, and a single-mindedness about fulfilling it. He never seemed to forget who he was, the advance man for a much bigger show. His mission was to prepare a people to receive their God. He had amazing integrity along with his blazing intensity. People came, they wept, they repented, they received his baptism, they went home and told their friends to come. Maybe they came for the show and stayed for the reality. Maybe they stayed because they wanted connection to God, and he was the closest thing they’d seen in ages.

What would draw us to John the Baptist? How does his call to repent, prepare the way of the Lord, land in our spirits 2000 years later? Are there aspects of his mission we want to share? Are there ways we can call the powers of our world to repentance and transformation? Ways we can call people we know to repentance and transformation? Ways we can call ourselves to repentance and transformation?

John’s call resonates through the ages to us. We want to connect to God too, deep in our spirits. We want to make more space for God in our lives, Repentance creates space, space that only God can fill. Repent, prepare the way. Our God is on the move!

12-6-23 - Level Ground

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

In his lifetime, John the Baptist was often associated with the prophet Elijah – many wondered if he were in fact Elijah returned. But the prophet the Gospel writers most closely linked him with was Isaiah, particularly his prophecy of an estranged Israel reconciled with her God. This passage, also an appointed reading for this Sunday, speaks tenderly of restoration; it provides much of the libretto of the Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah. (Here is a rendition, conducted by Sir Colin Davis at the Barbican.)

We looked yesterday at this passage's command to “prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

But the prophet has more in mind than building roads – in his vision, the whole topography is to be reconfigured: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.”

There is a leveling principle at work here, paralleled in the Magnifcat, the Song of Mary, that hymn to economic equity – "He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.” Both of these movements are evident in the incarnation of Jesus, Son of God, born to the lowly woman to whom these words are attributed, lifting her up even as he consents to leave his heavenly throne.

Is the in-breaking realm of God about smoothing out the uneven ground, bringing down the hills and raising up the valleys? That could make for a dull landscape. Yet it also enables movement, reducing barriers between peoples.

And what if, once more, we look inward and view this leveling process as an inner movement? What if the hills and valleys of our hearts, of our moods, became more even, our “rough places” became a plain? Would that make us dull – or more serene, content, better containers for God’s power and love, vessels of God’s healing?

I invite you, in prayer, to think about the valleys inside you; reflect back on your life and look at the “valley times.” Do the same with the mountains and hills, the high points, the high places. What if they came together more?

Where is the ground in your life uneven? Would you like God to smooth it? Where are your “rough places?” Envision them as flat and true as a prairie – is that a fruitful image for you?

Isaiah, speaking for God, said that a beautiful thing will follow this great leveling: "Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

We can glimpse God’s glory every time we level a road so everyone has the same access, whether in the realm of money, power, justice – even feelings. We help reveal God's glory.

12-5-23 - Into the Wilderness

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

Oh, for the placement of a comma! Is John the Baptist “one crying out in the wilderness?”(as Hymn 75 in the Episcopal hymnal would have it), or is he one crying out, “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord?” The lack of punctuation in New Testament Greek leaves plenty of room for confusion. Luckily in this case, the gospel is quoting from a section of Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible: A voice cries out: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

The comma confusion always left me an impression of John as a lone voice crying in the wilderness for God’s people to repent and return to their Lord. Clarification reminds me that his invitation is rather to prepare in the wilderness a way for God. And that generates all kinds of other questions. Why in the wilderness? Why make straight a highway for God in the desert? Is there too much noise in our urban and suburban lives to hear a voice crying out, “Prepare the way?”

Or might we take “wilderness” as a metaphor, internalizing it to represent the chaos of our multiply-committed lives? Wilderness can suggest a stark emptiness. It can also evoke chaos, lack of order. Which description better fits your inner landscape today?

Perhaps preparing a way for God in our wilderness means locating the wild, untamed, unyielded places within ourselves. Those are often where God’s Spirit best meets our own. Or maybe it means that the messiest parts of our lives are where we are invited to prepare a way for the Lord, de-cluttering, clearing out so as to access our most essential selves.

Wilderness is also something we need. We can become cut off from ourselves, so distracted by our tasks and data, our commitments and the priorities others impose upon us, that we haven’t dealt with or dwelt in our own wilderness for quite some time. Advent offers a particular invitation to do that – to intensify the spiritual practices that connect us to God and to ourselves; to take some retreat time either daily or going on an actual retreat, to rediscover the desert within and straighten out the highway for God’s presence to enter our lives with more fullness.

Which of the many questions today resonated with you?

Where did you feel yourself reacting?
What invitation to prayer do you discern out of your reflection on inner wilderness?
Where in yourself do you want to “prepare the way for the Lord, make straight a highway for our God?”

A surprising image springs up in my mind: a community-service gang in orange jumpsuits, clearing up litter by the side of the highway. Not a bad Advent image for us to entertain today; we are all prisoners of our selves, to some degree, on the way to liberation. Why not clear a highway for our Liberator to hasten our freedom?

12-4-23 - Into the Desert

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

Black Friday and Giving Tuesday are past; colored lights blink on every other house. Must be about time for John the Baptist to saunter out of the desert, just as our consumer frenzy churns toward its secular apotheosis, to remind us that it’s Advent – and that “theosis” pertains to God.

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

We only seem to let John out once a year, this not-so-cuddly prophet of repentance. Repentance is not much in vogue, and John is more than a bit odd, in his weird attire and diet of locusts and wild honey. We could consider him a proto-vegan, but for his camel skin coat and leather belt.

But John is where all four gospels start to tell “the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” as Mark begins his account. John is the one sent to “make ready a people prepared for the Lord,” the angel Gabriel told his father Zechariah when announcing John’s improbable conception. Zechariah himself sings out when John is born: “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins."

This suggests that repentance is our entryway into the “knowledge of salvation.” Repentance is a pre-requisite to feeling the need of salvation – awareness of what we need saving from. If we’re all hunky-dory without Jesus, he really need not have bothered with all that incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and redemption business. We have to believe some level of estrangement with God, and accept some degree of human culpability for the state of the world, in order to comprehend or even desire salvation.

Accepting these realities is repentance. Repentance doesn’t have to be a laundry list of personal sins and short-comings. It is an awareness of being less than what we were created to be, and a desire to accept forgiveness and invite the kind of healing that remedies that fault.

So let’s begin Advent with repentance, since that is John’s specialty. Like those who traveled out of their safe zones to go see him in the wilderness, to hear his call to repent and receive his baptism of cleansing, let’s wander away from our patterns of stuckness, our self-justifications, our self-saving strategies, and ask the Holy Spirit to show us how we have grown apart from God. We might try this each day this week, and see what gets freed and released. If it helps, you can use this Inventory of Confession or pray this Litany of Forgiveness. (You can find other resources for spiritual work here.)

Where does our pride kick up? Where do our relationships cause us to wince or get defensive? Where is shame rooted in us, a deep sense of unworthiness? We can bring these into the light of God’s love, feel the feelings related to each root of bitterness, and begin to release it to God for forgiveness and healing.

The forgiveness has already been given. The healing begins as we accept the forgiveness and desire new growth.