4-27-23 - The Abundant Life

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

Want a simple principle to guide life choices? Discern which option leads to more life, and which is likely to drain life away. When energy and time are finite, we need to invest in people and activities we find life-giving, and which give life to others, rather than ones which run us down, involve unnecessary criticism or lead to toxic thinking or behavior. It's not always that simple, of course, and might involve some rewiring. Yet that is the kind of transformation the Holy Spirit works as we make room for God’s life in us.

Jesus draws a contrast between life-giving and death-dealing in this week’s passage: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy,” he says. “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

“The thief” might be anything or anyone who stunts our life or brings oppression, be it emotional, political, spiritual, economic, or any other kind. Jesus was painting the religious leaders with that brush, and of course the Roman occupiers. He probably also meant our spiritual adversary, the devil, intent on drawing people away from trusting the love of God. We know what death-dealing looks and feels like.

The abundant life is harder to describe, since life is hard to quantify – but we know it when we’re living it. It consists not so much in an abundance of things or time or even love, as in our awareness of richness, our being tuned to abundance. The abundant life is a balanced life, where we are renewed as we pour ourselves out for others. It is a life of laughter and insight and rich conversations, of wonder and play. It is life that we live here and now, and it does not end with death. That, Jesus says, is why he came – that we might have life, and have it in abundance.

What are the “thieves” who steal your good will, peace, confidence, joy? Make a list of all the culprits. It might include people you love; surfacing that can give you incentive to work on those relationships. This exercise is not without complications!

In what places do you find the most life? List those too. Do you get to put enough of your time and energy into those things? Can you find a way to invest more? Any investment advisor will tell us to put our resources into things with a good yield, what Jesus called “fruitfulness.” Are we investing wisely with our time and gifts and love?

When our hearts are tuned to abundance, we find feasts large and small. We make feasts for others at the drop of a hat. We trust that resources will be there when needed, and usually find they are. We move with the wind of the Spirit in our sails, and when we’re becalmed, we rest in it. We feel our feelings fully, even the less happy ones. We forgive ourselves and others easily. We love ourselves and others.

The abundant life is not where I began, and it’s still a place I need guidance to navigate. As the Holy Spirit remakes me, in union with my spirit, I’m learning to dwell there more and more. I hope you are too.

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6-14-22 - The Living Among the Dead

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

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

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

Each time we reread Scripture a different word or phrase might snag our attention, new echoes or resonances ring their chimes. The phrase, “he did not live in a house but in the tombs” sets off in my mind the words of the angel outside Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” 

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

Yet there was enough life in him to get him down to the shore that morning. There was enough "self" left in his spirit for Jesus to project his strength into. He did not belong among the dead, but among the living. Jesus is always in the business of life, and as his followers that is our calling too.

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

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

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

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8-11-21 - Flesh-Eating

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

We generally associate the words "flesh-eating" with bacteria and zombies. Maybe the vogue for vampire and zombie books, movies and television shows offers the Church a major crossover opportunity. For here, right in the fourth Gospel, Jesus himself is quoted, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them..”

It’s not surprising that some early Christians faced charges of cannibalism, with rhetoric like that floating around. And there’s no way to make these words palatable – especially to a Jewish audience, rooted in laws proscribing above all the ingestion of blood, which is life. And that is the point. The impulse toward cannibalism in communities that practice it (or so I’ve read…) is to take into oneself the enemy's power. Jesus’ invitation is to take in the very life of the Friend.

He invites those who follow him to receive his life at the most basic atomic level, into our bodies, minds and spirits. He says he came from Life and gives Life –
“Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.”

So much in this world can sap life and celebrate death (like zombie and vampire entertainments..). Our culture does not lean life-ward or promote hopefulness and love. If we are to be seen as people of life, we need the Life of the Living Father to be filling us, renewed in us, every day. That happens through prayer and study, through inviting the Spirit to work through us in ministry – and it happens in this ritual many Christians celebrate at weekly worship, taking in the body and blood of Christ. (It will be interesting to study the impact of moving to virtual worship during the pandemic on the lives and faith of eucharistically oriented Christians.)

What are the sources of life in your life? And how do you best access the Life of God? And how do you go about sharing it with others? You might ask God in prayer, "Who needs to see / feel / receive your LIfe today? Show me how..."

There are many ways to invite people. If you know fans of True Blood, tell them we do a little blood-sipping every Sunday. If your friends are partial to The Walking Dead, you can tell them we do a little flesh-eating too. And if their tastes run more to the mundane, just tell them they can find life, life and more life in the body and blood of Christ, however they receive it.

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