9-2-22 - You Take the High Road, I'll Take the Slow

You can listen to this reflection here.

The first time I went on retreat, I immersed myself in prayer, scripture, worship and the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux. His passion for God was so fervent, at one point I remember praying, “Oh Lord, set my heart on fire with love for you!” Right away a response came in my mind: “Do you know what you’re asking? My fire burns away everything that is not of me, everything.” I thought of all those references to God as a refiner’s fire, a consuming fire, and I felt I was being offered a choice – the “high road” of full commitment to the way of Jesus, or the lower, slower way of mixed motives and divided devotions. I chose the slower, messier way. And you?

The hard teachings we’ve been wrestling with this week concern this choice. Jesus tells those who would follow his way that they must walk away from the claims of this world, family and money. “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” James in his epistle says even more starkly, “Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”

Did Jesus really mean we should hate this life we’ve been given? The passage from Deuteronomy appointed for this Sunday urges us to “Choose life.” “…today I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him…”

Jesus invites us to choose the life that is the most real, the most true, the most eternal; the God-life, visible to the eyes of faith, not the mere world-life apparent to our physical senses. “I have come that they may have life, and have it in abundance,” he says. (John 10:10). He invites us to leave behind all that distracts us from receiving the abundance of love, joy, peace, grace, forgiveness, healing – and ministry – that God offers us.

I chose the slow road, the “middle way.” I may still be on it, but over the years, as my commitment has sharpened, I perceive that this is also a kingdom path. The God Jesus revealed meets us on any road we’re on, any time we turn away from the emptiness allegiance to the world brings us. This Father in heaven rushes out to greet his children as we come back to ourselves and back to our true home.

Jesus’ invitation is to follow him, to start consciously walking the road with Him every day. As we do that, He will point out sights we may not have noticed before. He may introduce us to people who live closer to the edge; might nudge us to give to this organization or that ministry. We might find ourselves making friends in parts of town we never saw before.

Who have you met on the road? When have you experienced the Father’s greeting? When have you experienced the Holy Spirit guiding you, protecting you, strengthening you? Write down those stories – other people might want to hear them.

The original name for Christ followers was “The People of the Way.” If we’re on the road with Jesus, guided by the Holy Spirit, we will end up where God wants us.

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8-22-22 - Investigating Jesus

You can listen to this reflection here.

Being invited to dinner is one of the great pleasures in life, in my opinion. But would Jesus agree? So often we read in the gospels about him going to dinner at the home of a Pharisee and being placed under a microscope. The Pharisees, teachers of the Law and respected religious leaders, were in equal measure fascinated with Jesus and alarmed by him. They seemed always to be observing and interrogating him, even at dinner.

As we will see this week, Jesus returned the favor, watching and commenting on their actions as well. Today let’s stay with the introduction to this story: 

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely…

I wish people nowadays were scrutinizing Jesus this closely. Many have no interest in getting to know him – and maybe that's because we haven't made the introductions. What if we were to invite people we know to investigate Jesus – to read about him in the Gospels, to invite communication with him in prayer, to examine the work done in his name, to hang out with those who follow his Way of Love?

Of course, it's also up to us to represent him well. People will likely want to know more if we demonstrate the sweetness of being a Christ-follower more than the judgmentalism of the Pharisee. Christians – at least in the United States in these times – are more known for judging than for loving, and that’s a huge loss. As one evangelical leader, John Maxwell, puts it, “Christ-followers should stop correcting and start connecting.”

And maybe we need to investigate Jesus again for ourselves. Many of us grew up in church, inherited faith from our parents, have heard the stories thousands of times – but when did we last read the gospels all the way through? When did we last make a study of Jesus’ encounters with people, or of his healings, or his parables? Many of us need to fall in love with Jesus again – or for the first time. The best way to do that is to get to know him for ourselves.

Let’s metaphorically invite Jesus to dinner this week – or breakfast. Let’s commit to reading a story about him every day, and make a note of what we observe, as though he were right in front of us. I think we’ll be surprised by something he says or does that is outside our expectations. We don’t have to scrutinize, but we can certainly get to know him better. Then we’ll be better placed to introduce him to our friends and neighbors.

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10-2-20 - The Way of Love: Pray

My congregations are exploring the Way of Love this fall, with different gospel readings. On Fridays, Water Daily takes up the Way of Love topic for the week – today that is the third practice: Pray.You can listen to this reflection here.

I have likened the Way of Love to deepening an existing relationship. Relationships require regular conversation. In the Christian life we call that prayer. At the most basic level, to pray is to talk to God – and learn to listen.

Just as we Turn again to Jesus, and regularly Learn about him, Pray is best as a daily practice. We often pray through the day – small “please’s” and “thank you’s” and “help me’s.” We pray together in worship each week. But to Pray as a dedicated practice can renew our hearts and transform our lives. We gain not only a deeper connection to God; we reap benefits of deeper peace and joy, a sense of God’s presence, and sharper awareness of our purpose.

Such a prayer practice requires intention and discipline. If we are to offer God this kind of space in our hearts each day, we need to set aside a regular time; a dedicated place (prayer room, or chair); a bible and perhaps a candle, journal, icon or prayer beads, if those help you center.

You don’t have to start with silence. Read some scripture, and then voice (or write) what is taking up mental space – things that worry you, or you have to get done, people you love, hopes, dreams, sorrows, blessings you’re grateful for. If you find structure helpful, you can use a pattern like ACTS – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication.

• Adoration – taking time to praise God, which is not the same as thanking. Praise is naming the qualities we value in another. Praise expands our spirits and makes more room for God’s life in us.
• Confession – naming the ways we have been less than who God made us to be, how we have hurt ourselves or others, failed to honor the humanity of others or the gifts of this beautiful earth. We get real about who we are, and return to God’s loving embrace.
• Thanksgiving – naming what we’re grateful for so we don’t get complacent. it reminds us that God is in the business of blessing, no matter what is going on.
• Supplication – asking God’s transforming love to be at work in situations and people in need of it. It’s good to ask after being reminded of God’s love and mercy.

Communicating to God what’s going on in us is only the first part of the practice of Pray. The second is to leave equal time to become silent and listen for God. The child Samuel was told to say, when he heard God calling, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” This is a good phrase for us to use as we turn to silence.

We might feel a message of intense love and encouragement. We might be led into places in our imagination in which we can meet Jesus. We might have a question on our hearts and sense God’s answer. We might sense a calling to do something small – or life-changing. We might feel nothing. Listen as peacefully as you can, perhaps saying a word or phrase to occupy your mind (“Jesus,” “Peace,” “Be still and know that I am God…”). Sometimes we’ll perceive an answer later. We offer ourselves in discipline regardless of our experience on a given day. Often we'll discover in our lives more peace and focus, intimacy with God, and grace that transcends our circumstances.

Try on such a prayer practice for a time. You might keep a journal, to write what you experience. You can learn ways to get centered and still, from praying in tongues to mindfulness techniques. A spiritual director or friend can help listen with you for what God is saying and doing in your life. If you hit a dry patch, keep going. It’s not all up to you.

For prayer does not begin with us – it originates with God. We are joining a conversation that’s already ongoing on in the triune life of God and deep in our spirits. Paul writes, “We do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” In fact, Jesus said God will not withhold the Holy Spirit from those who pray.

There’s no one “correct” way to pray, and there’s no way to do it wrong – except not to do it.

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9-25-20 - The Way of Love in Challenging Times: Learn

You can listen to this reflection here.  My congregations are exploring the Way of Love this fall, with different gospel readings. Each Friday Water Daily will take up the Way of Love topic for the week – today that is the second practice: Learn.

What do we do after we’ve turned to Jesus? We grow our relationship with him – or rather, discover a relationship that’s always been there. From God’s side, it has been.

Think back to a time when you fell in love. Didn’t everything about the other person fascinate you? You could talk endlessly about this new love; there was no limit to the time you wanted to spend with him, finding out everything you could, what made her what she is. That passion to know, to go deeper, is at the heart of the spiritual practice of Learn. It involves study, not in a dry or dutiful way, but the way we focus on something or someone that intrigues us to the core.

How do we get to know someone who intrigues us? We talk to them, to people who know them, perhaps google or read up on them. So:

• We talk to Jesus – This is prayer. To really know him, we have to talk to him... and listen for his replies.
• We talk to people who know Him. Spiritual conversation is integral to the Christian life. If we keep our faith to ourselves, if we never find out how other people experience God, we impoverish ourselves and limit our growth. 
• We read about him. We can’t take study and reading out of the practice of Learn – we are people of the Book. Our “book” is really two distinct collections of writings. The first, which we self-referentially call the “Old Testament,” is better termed the Hebrew Bible, as it has a full identity apart from us. This contains stories, poetry, drama, law codes, histories and prophetic writings conveying the arc of God’s interaction with humanity from the beginning of time to shortly before the era of Christ. Some of it speaks to us directly, some of it reads like letters to our ancestors, but all of it is our root-stock. The shorter collection of stories, letters and treatises that we call the New Testament is the most vital for Christ-followers – the gospels telling of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection; Acts and the letters in which we witness early leaders struggling to articulate the beliefs and ethics of this new community of believers in Jesus Christ, as the movement became organized, systematized, ritualized and institutionalized.

A serious Christ-follower will engage the Scriptures each day. It might be in a small way –a devotion with a verse or two, short prayer or comment; a longer reading like Water Daily, in which we chew all week on the Gospel for Sunday; systems that guide us through the Bible in a year, or our own daily office lectionary; or just reading chapter by chapter. It is good to have a guide, even just a study bible with explanatory notes. Weekly engagement can include a group Bible study, where insights are shared and multiplied beyond what we glean ourselves.

The daily-ness builds the relationship. Just as you crave daily interaction with your beloved, so God seeks daily encounter with us. God’s Word is not the only way to know Jesus more deeply, but we cannot know him without it.

Above all, this practice means cultivating an adventurous orientation toward learning, to know that we have never “arrived,” will never plumb the depths of who God is. Our assumptions about God can hold us back and keep us from being open to what God wants us to see and do. The more we Learn, the more we discover what we don’t know, and the more joy we experience in exploring this One who made us, knows us and wants so deeply to be known by us.

This practice is like one who found a treasure in a field, hid it and then bought the field so she could always go back to it. I wish for you tremendous joy and depth as you Learn and grow in this love affair with God.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are  here.

Water Daily is now a podcast - so far on Spotify, Google, PocketCasts, Overcast and RadioPublic. Coming soon to more platforms - look for it wherever you get your podcasts, and please subscribe.