Water Daily: restoration

Showing posts with label restoration. Show all posts

12-9-22 - Hitting the Highway

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

We are on a journey in this life – that’s a truth, if trite. We are ever on the move away from or toward home. Isaiah, in his prophecy about the return of Israel’s exiles to their homeland, writes of a royal highway on which no one, not even a fool, can get lost:

"A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way…no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray."

For a people separated from their homeland, these were words of deep promise and hope – "Say to those who are of a fearful heart, 'Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.'"

In our world right now an unprecedented number of people are exiled from their homelands – over 100 million forcibly displaced, according to the World Bank. This may not be not our literal experience, yet each of has some areas in which we feel far from what we want, or who we love, or from the kind of peace and wholeness we crave. That highway is there for us too – and it leads to healing.

"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy."

In the season of Advent we are invited to get in touch with what it is we yearn for; what – or who – we are waiting for. What is that for you? How do you fill in the blank,
“When I have….,” or “When I am…, then I’ll be okay?”

Where do you want to get that you are not already?

The Good News is that this highway is already accessible to us, to bring us closer to our own hearts, and to the heart of the God who awaits us at the end of every road we travel. It is a highway for those who have been redeemed, set free, by the love of Jesus Christ for humankind. And it sounds like a mighty fun road, with joy and laughter –

"And the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

What we celebrate in this season, what we anticipate, is that day when sorrow and sighing are gone for good. Even now we glimpse that day in moments, in bursts – it is coming; it is here; it is ahead on that royal road, that highway to heaven, right here on earth.

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12-8-22 - Streams in the Desert

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

For the rest of the week, I’d like to turn to the portion of Hebrew scripture appointed for Sunday – a beautiful prophecy of restoration and hope from Isaiah 35. It speaks of the day when the travails of the exiles are lifted and they return once again to their homeland. In the poetry of the prophet, the land itself joins in celebration:

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.

Deserts are fascinating places – often rich with plants and trees, vegetation that thrives under challenging conditions – wind, sun, drought. Some seasons in our lives are like that. Sometimes one area feels arid while others seem more productive. One fruit of spiritual growth is knowing we can thrive under conditions that are less than ideal as well as during times of plenty.

What feels dry in your life at the moment?
What pains you these days? What are you anxious about?
What do you yearn for that feels far off? What are you thirsty for?
Name those things – lay them before the Lord in your prayer.

Much of what we do in prayer is become aware of what’s going on with us, so we can invite God’s Spirit into those places. Another name for God’s Spirit is the River of Life – coursing through us, splashing into the thirsty spaces, cleansing, healing, refreshing, renewing, carrying away all the debris that holds us back from really living the life God has given us to live. Here is a promise:

For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

Whatever in your life has become dry or brittle can be renewed. Ask for water - as the Spirit comes, streams of living water will break forth in you.

11-10-22 - New Heavens/New Earth

You can listen to this reflection here.

For the rest of this week we will focus on one of the readings from the Hebrew Bible set for Sunday, a beautiful prophecy in Isaiah, in which God announces: “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth.” This promise is timely.

Many Christians express their faith and hope in God’s justice by working to ensure equality for all members of our society – people of all colors, genders, levels of wealth, sexual orientations, countries of origin, religious traditions. They see this as is a way of harnessing the power of heaven, to participate with God in bringing about that new earth. Isaiah gives voice to this yearning for peace and security which should be the birthright of every man, woman and child – and animal – on this planet. He articulates beautifully the hope of a restored creation living in harmony:

I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime...

Reading that, I think of families grieving the death of elders or infants who did not have access to affordable healthcare; of women and girls who see protection for women being stripped away and now feel less secure; of people of color watching the resurgence of unabashed racism, afraid for their children; of men and women who have lost children and spouses, brothers and uncles to ever increasing levels of gun violence – the sound of weeping never quite dies away.

I think of the promise of security and work and rest depicted in this prophecy:
They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat…

This is true peace, when each person can live in safety in her own home, bringing up his children to thrive in trust. This is the world God says he is bringing into being. This is the promise we are invited to participate in making real. And that work is still before us. Perhaps the challenge is greater now, but the work remains, and we do not do it alone.

What do you long for when you think of God making new heavens and a new earth? What aspect of life in this world do you feel called to help renew? Where do you want to put your energies?

Start by praying about that area, and imagining yourself making a difference, in the power of the Spirit. What do you see yourself doing or saying? Keep inviting God into it.
I know I will keep working and praying for peace on our streets and honor in the halls of power. “They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.”

I believe in the power of love to transform and convert the most evil heart. I have to, despite evidence to the contrary. The evidence is not more powerful than the power and the promise of God. God is creating the new heavens and the new earth – and we are here at the beginning. Every day.

10-26-22 - Bad Company

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

Zacchaeus may have been happy to hear Jesus say he was coming to his house – but no one else thought it a good move. Luke tells us, “All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’”

A sinner. It’s well and good to talk about the Kingdom of God and loving your neighbor as yourself, not to mention your enemies – but to actually go to the home of one of society’s most notorious villains? That’s a political third-rail move, guaranteed to get you in trouble with your followers. In our day, it might be analogous to working with sex offenders or drug lords to stop cycles of addiction and violence. Many people can see no humanity in people who abuse others, even if many who abuse are also victims. If you can categorize someone as an abuser, you can stop thinking of her as a person.

Jesus stood with persons who were victimized, condemned the action and the damage caused – and also reached out to perpetrators. Jesus wasn’t interested in popularity – he was invested in the mission of God to reclaim and restore all humanity to wholeness. All humanity – even those who do their worst.

Jesus had a way of seeing past a person’s outward traits – illness, possession, greed, even violence. He did not confuse people with their diseases or disorders. Rather, he aligned himself with the core self within that person, and directed the power that made the universe to a person’s inner self, weak as it may have been. He saw who Zacchaeus was, apart from all the wickedness he perpetrated. He saw a broken child of God, not just an “extortioner” or a “sinner.”

He invites us to do no less. Sometimes that inner self is hard to find. In people who are far gone on the path of addiction, for instance, the core self may be very, very faint. Yet we can trust that it is there, because this person is a child of God. And we are called to offer our strength and our will and our love to that core self – not to the outer behavior, but to the inner self. In Christ, no one is beyond repair, not Zacchaeus, not anyone, unless they absolutely choose to be.

Can you think of someone who seems beyond redemption, who is so destructive to herself or others, it’s hard to see any humanity? Might be someone you know of; might be a world leader; might be a category you’ve lumped a whole lot of people into. In prayer today, can you hold that person or group in God’s light for a few moments, asking God to rescue them from who they are becoming? To restore them to who they truly are?

Is God calling you to take action to reach out to such a person? It can be like extending your hand to an angry dog – you might get nipped at. Maybe Jesus says, "Do it anyway."

The baptismal covenant Episcopalians affirm asks, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” We can’t respect someone’s dignity if we lump them into a group of others – saints or sinners. We need the courage to see each person on their own terms.

The answer to that question is, “I will, with God’s help.” God’s help is there for us when we’re at our worst, and God’s help is here for us to help others become their best.

5-19-22 - Walk

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

I was privileged to know Canon Jim Glennon, an Anglican clergyman from Australia who had an extraordinary gift and ministry of healing. We corresponded quite a bit before he died, and I invited him to lead a healing mission I organized at my church in New York. I will never forget his clear, simple teaching about God’s healing: plant the seed of faith, in Christ; give thanks for God’s activity, even before you see it (“first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn…” he’d quote); and don’t be afraid to test it.

At that healing mission, to demonstrate his teaching, he asked if someone with severe back pain would come up for prayer, and a man did. The process by which Jim prayed, then checked in, then responded to the feedback is an incredible story in itself; it included the man’s realization that he needed to forgive the person who’d caused his injury. But after he prayed to release that, and we prayed some more, Jim asked the man how his pain was now, and he said, “It’s gone! It’s been with me for 15 years, and it’s gone!” “Well, twist around,” Jim said. “Move your back. Try it out. Get up and walk.” One of the ways we accept the healing God offers us is by moving into it.

Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Sometimes we pray for healing or transformation, and think God has not answered. And why do we think that? Because we haven’t moved! We’re still sitting in our dis-ease and sometimes despair and mistrust, still seeing the matter from the same angle, perhaps influenced by disappointments in the past. But as we get up and move around, we have to see it differently, for our position changes. (Not to mention the physiological benefits for our brain chemistry of moving…).

We can assume that God has heard our prayers, and assume that the God who loves and desires freedom and wholeness for us is indeed acting in and through us. So we give thanks even before we see the fullness of the healing we desire. We begin to walk, to move ourselves into the healing stream of God’s love and power. Maybe we limp at first; maybe we move cautiously; but we are to move toward that freedom and wholeness, our attention fixed not on our remaining symptoms but on the unwavering love of God in Jesus Christ.

God’s healing stream is that Living Water Jesus promised would well up inside us to eternal life. And God’s healing stream is that mighty river of God Life that flows around us as we move in the Spirit. If the flow is impeded by anxiety or anger or unforgiveness or unhealed trauma, we invite the Spirit to help remove those obstacles. It is remarkable how much healing can happen even as we’re getting free of some of these impediments.

Today, pray for healing in whatever area you’ve been considering this week. (Or pray with another – the faith of two is stronger than one). Believe that God desires wholeness and freedom for you, whatever that will look like. Give thanks for God's activity even before you see the fruits. And then begin to walk in faith, into healing. First the blade, then the ear, then the fullness of life!

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3-25-22 - Found and Lost

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

It has been hard to pack all we might say about this powerful parable into five days. (To go deeper, I recommend Henri Nouwen’s classic, The Return of the Prodigal Son, which explores this story and especially its three main characters through the lens of Rembrandt’s painting of the same name.)

We haven’t spent nearly enough time on this “prodigal father,” whose extravagant forgiveness and restoration of his wastral son strikes some as no less wasteful than that son’s squandering of his inheritance. First among those who feel that way is the father’s elder son, who gets wind of the reunion and is horrified:

“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’”

For the second time that day, the father goes out to meet a son where he is, not waiting for him to come in. He loves his sons equally – and that in itself is an affront to this elder boy who has faithfully served and done everything right. In his view, his father should love him more, for he has earned it.

And in this view he has a lot of company. When I ask people to whom they relate in this parable, most say the older brother. We like fairness. We like earning our way. Yet Jesus made it clear in parable after parable that the Realm of God is a place not of fairness but grace. Grace extended to others, undeserving others – and grace by its definition comes to the undeserving – can make us feel cheated.

But God’s economy is one of abundance. Had the elder brother asked for a party, he could have had one every week. But how can he expect the father to love his other son less? The father’s love is a full measure, pressed down, overflowing. As I once sensed God say to me in prayer, “I already love you the most. There is nothing you have to do, or can do, to make me love you more – I love you the most.”

“Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

Jesus leaves the story unresolved. Does the elder son relent, allow grace to flow into him? Or does he define himself “lost” by his hardness of heart, like the religious leaders to whom Jesus was likely referring? And what about us? Are we willing to count ourselves “found” if the company includes people we would have trouble forgiving? What if we let God do it for us?

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3-18-22 - The Gardener

You can listen to this reflection here.

The more I reflect on this parable Jesus told, the more I like this gardener. To the owner who wants to cut down a fig tree that has borne no fruit for three years, he says this: “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”

I appreciate Jesus highlighting a character who has both compassion and inclination to think strategically about how to remedy a situation. Rather than blaming the victim and diverting resources, this gardener thinks in transformational terms. He is also realistic. He knows sometimes you can improve a situation and do your best to get resources where they’re needed, and still end up fruitless. Anyone who has ever worked with addicts or people stuck in ruts of chronic poverty recognizes that heartbreak. And yet, such workers also see transformation of people and lives – that’s what keeps them digging and fertilizing, tending and watering.

As I read the parable again (remembering that we can see it differently from one time to the next), I see the gardener as Jesus, who came that we might have life and have it in abundance, who yearned for his followers to bear abundant fruit. Though he could be ruthless with the powerful and self-righteous, he was both clear and compassionate with those who struggled with failure. He invited the broken and the sinful into relationship, offering forgiveness and friendship and the opportunity to serve others. (My churches will read one such gospel story this Sunday.) And one by one those who followed him became transformed and fruitful. The extra care and time yielded fruit.

Jesus has done the same for us. We may not always want his hand reaching toward us; we’d rather he kept his digging and fertilizing for someone else. Other times we’re well aware of how much like that fig tree we are. What Good News it is to know we have a gardener who wants to tend and nurture us to greater growth. Just accepting that News can strengthen our roots, as we’re humble enough to receive it.

Two images of gardener come to us from our scriptures. One is in the story of creation in Genesis, when we’re told that, after creating the first human being, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” Humankind’s original purpose was to be a gardener.

The other image, which I cannot but hold together with this first, comes on the first day of the new creation, Easter morning, when the resurrected Jesus stood in a garden speaking to one of those reclaimed fig trees, Mary Magdalene. She didn’t recognize him; she thought he was the gardener. Perhaps she was right.

10-30-20 - The Way of Love: Rest

You can listen to this reflection here.

The seventh spiritual practice in the Way of Love shares an attribute with the seventh day of Creation: rest. Genesis speaks of God creating the world and all its life in six “days” (epochs…), and says, “And.. God rested on the seventh day from all the work that God had done.” Does God need rest? Isn't God unlimited in vigor and resilience? (Just like us...?)

God's ways are mystery, but could it be that a regular period of inactivity, a time to digest and process events, to refresh and recharge, is good even for this God in whose image we are made? Keeping the Sabbath holy – set apart from the ordinary – is an invitation and a command, the only commandment many Christians blithely ignore. This is like being given the deed to a beautiful house and not moving in. Do we really prefer to stay in our shacks of fatigue and stress, while God offers us the gift of time, even a whole day each week, in which to be unproductive?

That is my definition of Sabbath – a day (any day of the week) to just be, to unplug, enjoy, be creative if desired, but do nothing that would be on a to-do list. When I manage to keep sabbath on my day off, I wake up the next day so ready to work. But when I keep asking my brain and body to generate and respond to work without a break, I become less productive, and certainly less peaceful. Just as our bodies need time to digest meals, and our brains need sleep time to process all the data and experiences we’ve encountered all day, so our spirits need times to refresh. Jesus regularly sought times apart, to pray, to listen, to be still.

Why is it so hard for us? A host of obstacles work against the practice of Rest. Not only does our culture not support rest, it promotes the lie that progress is defined by productivity, that we are only as valuable as our latest accomplishment. Many of us also carry an inner demand for achievement, borne of a deep insecurity about our identity. When we work, we know who we are. But hear this: when we rest, we know whose we are. God says, “You are my beloved. With you I am well pleased.” The practice of Rest says “Yes!” to God’s love and grace.

The “tyranny of the urgent” also inhibits our ability to live into God’s gift of Rest. And with our technology, where the urgent thrums constantly through our devices, it’s even easier to get caught up in what seems most pressing. It takes maturity and discipline to step out – ideally at least once a day – and say, “Hmmm – that felt like the most urgent task. But was it the most important thing I could have done with that hour/day/week/ year?” Rest gives us that perspective.

Another disincentive to living into the gift of Rest is discomfort with feelings that might emerge when we stop. Busyness is an effective anesthetic, distracting us from fear, anger, grief or anxiety that might be stirring in us – and in these times, all of those feelings are swirling in many of us. When we stop, we often become aware of our feelings. And feelings, like 2-year-olds, can kick up some tantrums if ignored. Acknowledge them, attend to them, and they often subside. Rest helps us do that.

To commit to the spiritual practice of Rest requires decisions and discipline. Beyond the imperative of getting enough sleep, it is best to set aside time(s) to rest within each day, and longer times within each week. Going for a walk, taking a few minutes to pray, napping, a cup of tea with a friend – these are all ways we can Rest. If you cannot fathom the idea of a 24-hour sabbath, try a half day. (Though a whole day is actually easier than a partial.) The practice of Rest also invites us to step out of the rhythms and pressures of our lives one or more times a year, to take a day or several of retreat.

Like most of the practices, this one gets easier as we make it habitual. Rest is where all the other practices in the Way of Love become integrated. They are all designed to help us center our lives on Jesus. And Jesus said, “Come unto me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest.” Take him up on that offer - we will rest with him for eternity. We can get used to it now.

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