4-27-22 - Who Is That Guy?

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

We don’t always recognize God’s activity in our lives until after the fact – after an accident has been avoided, “coincidental” timing confirmed, an unexpected encounter opened into new opportunities. And we rarely experience God where we expect God to be. Jesus’ disciples certainly didn’t expect him to show up on a beach by the Sea of Tiberias. So they didn’t recognize him – until they saw his handiwork, which they had witnessed (in Luke’s account) at the beginning of their story with Jesus.

So they cast the net, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

It's amusing that the naked Peter puts on clothes to jump into the water – it just wouldn’t do to greet his risen Lord and Savior in his birthday suit. And once they realize it is Jesus on the shore, all of them hurry to get there, though it must have taken a lot of muscle to pull those heavy nets. And then someone ignored the crucified and risen Lord in order to count the fish, for John records there were 153 of them (fishermen, like baseball fans, do love their stats…) John also mentions that, “though there were so many, the net was not torn,” perhaps to emphasize that God’s work is always to make things whole.

Because we don’t expect to see Jesus around and about in our lives, we don't always notice where he is. But we can learn to notice. Becoming attuned to where Jesus is, where the Holy Spirit is moving and shaking things up, is essential for those who want to be part of the Jesus movement. We are called to join him where he is already working, or to prepare the place where he wants to come next. We don’t have to do anything on our own. So we need to learn to recognize him, even before the “evidence” appears.

This is a habit of the heart we can cultivate as we do any other important activity or attitude. After a while, our spiritual sense becomes more acute, but at first we may have to work at it. Perhaps at the beginning of each day we can review our plans and pray about where we plan to join Jesus or want him to join us. And at the end of the day review where we’ve been, and write down where we realize in retrospect – or knew at the time – that he was present in some way.

How might he be present? He might have spoken through someone or we might have found our attention drawn to something life-giving. We might have felt a peace or a holy urgency, or found ourselves compelled to draw near someone because of a gift they had or a need they manifested. Sometime we know he was there because he’s now gone, as happened to the disciples in Emmaus.

Notice. Name it. Write it down. Review it at the end of the week. In time, we will become so accustomed to Jesus being around, we won’t need miracles to get our attention.

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1-27-22 - Hell Hath No Fury

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

We’ve seen them too often, images of religious people screaming, ranting, protesting, attacking, their faces contorted, eyes bulging, fists raised. Here is just such a scene near the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, in the synagogue in his hometown, after he tells the people he’s not likely to be doing any miracles there.

When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.

An overreaction, perhaps? Or did they feel he had blasphemed, claiming to be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy? Or offensive, reminding them of times when God’s favor had rested upon outsiders rather than the people of Israel? We don’t know exactly what so infuriated them, but it surely had something to do with their expectations being dashed. When people’s religious hopes and expectations are not met, they often experience a more profound letdown than when facing other disappointments.

Why else would conflict so often fester in our congregations? Because people bring to faith communities unspoken, unnamed, often unconscious expectations of finding the perfect family, the one in which you are perfectly seen and accepted and affirmed, and all your needs are met. God is supposed to do that for us. And when that doesn’t happen, people often get angry, and that anger can be directed at clergy, at fellow-congregants, at others who share the building. At its heart, though, it is an anger that God has disappointed us.

Jesus’ fellow townsfolk just acted out more clearly and obviously the rage many feel toward a God who allows suffering to go on, evil to flourish, peace to fail. We want God’s miracles, damn it! As well we should. I believe God wants us to pray for God’s power to be unleashed.

We need to pray and then release. Pray with fervor and recognize that there are many factors involved in how the answers to our prayers will be manifest. God will not undercut his gift of free will. Humans are free to choose their course, and that inevitably inhibits the realization of God's will. Perhaps the miracles are when we are enabled to choose the good, choose against our own self-interest. That’s how God’s power to transform gets worked out.

Let’s not judge those rage-filled congregants of Nazareth; at some time or other many of us might have been in their shoes. We can only wish they could have seen past their own desire and expectations to discern the Holy One in their midst. But he was too familiar; they couldn’t see him as God. Let’s not make that mistake.

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12-13-21 - Haste

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

In Sunday Gospel Land, we’re going backward. Having spent two weeks with John the Baptist (when Jesus was already a grown man), we zip back to both men’s pre-natal life. (My own churches have had the readings out of lectionary sequence, but more chronologically.) Back we go to Galilee, or rather to Judea, where young Mary has gone “with haste” to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Having received the rather alarming news of her impending pregnancy by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary is told by that frightening angel that Elizabeth, “who is 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.”

One piece of news or the other sent Mary quickly away from her native Nazareth: 

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

What induced her haste? Was she anxious to verify the angel’s claims, to be reassured that she was not crazy, had not hallucinated the whole stupefying encounter? Was she eager to get away from prying eyes and nagging tongues, and gossip that could have exposed her to more than disgrace – were she found to have committed adultery while betrothed, she could have faced a penalty of death. Luke doesn’t tell us why she went “with haste,” but the phrase stands out in this season when we are invited to embrace waiting and watching. Mary didn’t wait – she just went. Perhaps guided by the Holy Spirit, perhaps by her own raging emotions, she high-tailed to the hill country.

There is a place and time for waiting in the life of faith. "Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength,” we read in Isaiah 40. “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage,” says Psalm 27. Certainly there is a lot of waiting during a pregnancy. Yet there is also a time and a place for action, for moving quickly to right a wrong, or to stand with someone under attack, or to discern what exactly God is doing when you feel the Spirit’s nudge.

Discernment is a tricky business. Often we need to wait for things to unfold in God’s time. But when we do get a word or prompt, even a hint of where God is inviting us to serve, we can seek confirmation right away.

What stirrings of the Spirit are animating you these days?
What activity of God are you drawn to participate in?
What injustice do you wish you could set right?
What person or people do you feel called to encourage and support?

Do you feel called into a new job or vocation? To pick up a new friend or pastime?

Whatever may be stirring, ask God to make it clear. That prayer doesn’t always get answered quickly, but we should not tire of asking it. And we should be ready to move with haste when we have a chance to find out just what it is God is up to now. For nothing will be impossible with God.

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