10-9-19 - Thank You

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

One in ten. Not a bad percentage – one in ten could look past the amazing wonder of this gift, to praise the Giver: 

“And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.”

In an age when we can measure rates of return on everything from email “opens” to dividend yields, maybe God says, “One in ten ain’t bad…”

And it’s not just any “one in ten” – this “one” is a double outcast, a leper anda Samaritan. In Gospel stories about Samaritans who “get it,” the writers always point out their ethnicity, like, “Can you believe it? A Samaritan!” It's like the year Denzel Washington and Halle Berry won the Oscars – it wasn’t enough that they were great actors, they had to be designated great black actors. Can you imagine?

The other nine presumably couldn’t wait to get to the temple, be certified as clean and get back to their homes, families, lives. This one turns back, praising God loudly. He throws himself at Jesus’ feet and thanks him. He is exuberant, extravagant in his praise and thanksgiving.

The messages of this story run much deeper than “Don’t forget to say thank you…,” but that is one. When we say thank you, it multiplies the gift we have received. The giver is affirmed for her generosity, and we in a sense receive the gift more fully as we make our delight known. I don’t know if anyone has tested the chemical or neurological effects of gratitude, but I’d bet there are some.

Gratitude is where joy begins. It turns our focus outward. When we cultivate it as a habit, it can change our interior landscape and make the people around us feel appreciated. So let’s practice, if we’re not already intentional about it:

What gift of God do you want to say “thank you” for today?
What person close to you would you like to thank? Maybe write a note or buy a gift for?
What stranger would you like to thank today? What if we all made a point of telling our barristas or dry cleaners or check-out clerks or IT fixers or accountants, “I really appreciate the job you do – it makes my life better.” Think how a wave of gratitude could ripple around the world in a matter of hours. Let’s start a hashtag!

While you’re at it, spend a little time thanking yourself for taking the time to talk to God, to listen, to notice God’s gifts around you. Be extravagant in giving thanks. We might even throw ourselves at Jesus’ feet, like runners sliding into Home…

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10-8-19 - Transformed

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

What was it like for those ten lepers as they went along the road toward Jerusalem, after Jesus sent them to the temple? They had called out to Jesus, “Have mercy on us!”, and his response was rather indirect: “When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’”

Why? Probably because the religious laws concerning skin diseases required that a priest certify the person was no longer diseased. (I’m glad that’s not part of my job description…) Jesus could heal them, but to be reinstated into the community, they had to follow that process.

So they went. “And as they went, they were made clean.” Did one person happen to glance at his hand and see his skin looked different? Or notice he had feeling in his feet again? Did they look at each other in shock and wonder as their very skin became transformed, new?

Sunday’s reading from the Hebrew Bible tells the great story of Naaman, a Syrian army commander who contracts leprosy. A Hebrew slave girl tells his wife that there is a prophet in Israel who can heal him, and he goes to find Elisha, who sends word that he should dip himself seven times in the Jordan. Naaman is outraged at this “treatment,” but his servants prevail upon him: “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, `Wash, and be clean'?" So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan... his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.”

So often we think healing is complicated and arduous, which can be our experience with surgical or chemical treatments and protracted rehabilitations. Healing in the Bible seems ridiculously simple – God or God’s representative simply says the word and it is done. Could it really be so easy?

More often than we think. When I remember and invite God to release healing in me and in those I pray with or for, I often see it. What’s hard is believing – and that gets much easier when we see it. That’s why it is so important that we pray for healing for each other and for the world – we begin to amass evidence that encourages us to continue.

Sure, at times illness persists or recurs – there is mystery here, and the temporal reality of decline and death. But we can make our baseline the healing we do see, rather than what we don’t. We can plant that seed of faith and give thanks even before we see the healing, and then with each lessening of symptoms or improvement give thanks all the more. “First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn.”

Try it today: pray in faith for healing in something or someone you didn’t think it was possible. And then keep giving thanks over the next few days and weeks, making note of any change or improvement you see. We can keep our energy on what God is doing, even before we see it.

That’s how we build up our faith muscles. And one day we look up and notice we’re transformed.

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10-7-19 - Outside the Lines

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

This week’s Gospel reading finds Jesus outside the lines again – traveling to Jerusalem through a region between Galilee (home base) and Samaria (“Other-Land”). “As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!'"

Why were they keeping their distance? Because leprosy – often a catch-all term for skin diseases of various sorts – was considered very contagious, and having any such blemish made one ritually unclean, unfit for temple or community activities. (If you want to read Mosaic law about skin diseases, their treatment and the lengths to which someone who had been healed had to go to be reinstated into full community, read Leviticus 13 and 14 – and 15, if you want to get into really gross stuff....)

Lepers had to stay away from other people, so they often lived in small groups outside villages. But these ten must have known something about Jesus, because they call him by name; they call him “Master,” and cry, “Have mercy on us!”

Who lives on the outskirts of our communities, exiled by their diseases, misfortunes – or what they fear we think of them? Where I live now, there are many who are homeless, living in encampments in the woods. They’re no different from housed folks – but left too long at the margins, they can become isolated and edgier, less hirable. Who is calling us, who bear the name and ministry of Christ, saying, “Have mercy?” Someone of a different nationality or ethnicity? A stranger, or someone we find strange? Someone who is poor or unhoused? Maybe just someone we know socially, whom we find annoying or troubling, and so we keep our distance?

Who comes to mind? What keeps her or him on the edges of your life? How do you feel about inviting that person closer? How are you being called to pray – for him/her? For yourself? Perhaps you feel on the outside of a community, wishing someone would hear your cry?

Jesus knows he can make these lepers whole, because the power of God flows through him. We have been promised that same power flows through us, as we are united in Christ. So we might have more to offer than we think to the people on the periphery of our vision, our life.

This week’s story is about healing, inside and out. As we journey through it, let’s start by opening our eyes to notice who’s calling to us from the edges, the margins, outside the lines. That’s so often where we find God.

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10-4-19 - Wait For It...

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

Faith includes waiting. This Sunday we hear from the prophet Habakkuk, expressing his anguish because “…the law becomes slack and justice never prevails." He resolves to keep watch to see how God will answer his complaint. And the Lord does answer: “Write the vision; make it plain,” so that it can be seen from afar. “For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie." He adds “...the righteous live by their faith.”

That is our job description, to live by faith, no matter how strong or weak we feel, no matter how little evidence we see. Jesus says to his disciples, “So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless servants; we have done only what we ought to have done!’”

It’s not the most gentle language, and I don’t think Jesus was calling his disciples worthless. He is speaking to his closest companions, whom he thinks should know better by now. We too, do better to think of ourselves as servants than entitled consumers. Servants don’t call all the shots; they do their jobs. They honor the people around them, and they take a day off. And they don’t get to regulate the timing. In an “I want it and I want it now” culture, that can be hard for us.

Is there something that you want now – or yesterday – that seems a long time coming? Justice, certainly. Rational discourse. Responsible leadership. Peace, equity. Those are a few “big picture” desires.

What about in your own life? What does God seem to be “tarrying” over an awfully long time? Is there something have you waited for a long time and then received? Remember...

One way to pray is to plant a “seed of faith” when we make our desires known to God. Then we trust that it is growing – keep giving thanks even before we see how that answer is unfolding. Jesus says, “First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn on the stalk.” We give thanks by faith until faith gives way to sight.

God’s vision will be realized at the appointed time. "It speaks of the end, and it does not lie."
God’s desires cannot be rushed, nor can they be delayed. They can only be trusted in. 

"If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay."

Waiting is how we exercise for our faith muscles.

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10-3-19 - Faith In Community

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

This week's reading speaks of faith as something you can have more of or less of. The disciples ask for more faith as they see what it takes to live this "God-Life." It does indeed take great faith to trust in what cannot be seen, to bear light into darkness and truth in the face of injustice, to proclaim life in the midst of death. We need faith to forgive the unforgivable, love the unlovable, heal the incurable, restore those who have been cast aside as worthless.

God seems to wait for us to bring our faith before acting. I wish it were otherwise, for our faith is often weak. But time and again in the Gospels we see Jesus respond to people’s faith, even saying to some, “Your faith has made you well.” Not “my power has made you well,” but “your faith.”

Why would God leave so much up to us, when God knows how feeble and fickle we can be? Is this a cosmic cruelty? It might be, had God not also provided what we need, asking only that we take hold of it. In addition to the “perfect faith” of Jesus, who joins us by his Spirit when we pray, God has also set us into communities of faith.

It seems that faith can be contagious, and that we can hold it for one another. We can pass it down from one generation to another, and friend to friend. In Sunday’s epistle, Paul writes to Timothy, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.” Lois and Eunice and many a father and grandfather too have “held faith” for their offspring until such time as they took hold of it. Some are still holding it in hope.

Who are your “grandmothers” and “fathers” in the faith, from whom you learned to trust and believe? Name a few. Give thanks and honor to those men and women.

Who are your friends in the faith, brothers and sisters who help you believe when your faith is weak? And for whom do you do that, by your prayers and your encouragement?

Is there a “big thing” you’ve had trouble trusting God about that you might ask a community of faith to pray about with you, for you? That is a godly risk.

Jesus doesn’t set us down, wind us up and say, “Okay – go do everything I commanded you.”
He says, “Yo, I am with you always, to the end of the ages.” (Okay, most translations say, “Lo…”)
We have plenty of faith around us to move trees, mountains, illnesses, injustice – and even hearts.

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10-2-19 - Taking Authority

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Jesus’ instructions to his followers in this week’s Gospel passage didn’t end with mustard seeds and mulberry trees. He illustrated the point with an example from domestic servanthood:

“Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? Would you not rather say to him, ‘Make supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; you can eat and drink later’? Do you thank the servant for doing what was commanded?“

In another of Jesus’ teachings which we read a few weeks ago (Luke 12:37), he says just the opposite. Clearly he is making a different point this time. And that point deals with authority. He has given his followers authority over nature, sin, disease, demons – even death. (Over pretty much everything except other people with free will – which is why we can tell a mulberry tree to plant itself in the sea, but all the faith in the world can’t make governments move or people to make choices that will preserve our planet...)

Maybe Jesus is annoyed at their timidity, given the authority they have as agents of God. I believe he is saying, “You are giving your challenges and obstacles way too much power. You are in charge – act like it when you pray!” This came home to me in prayer one day, when I was pleading for Jesus to heal a beloved cat who was gravely ill – and I sensed Jesus say simply, “You heal her. I have given you the authority.” I was shocked, but began to pray in a more faithful way.

Jesus always invites his followers to be bold, not timid. We don't need to let something like a common cold disable us, when we can take our God-given authority and invite the power and love of God to flow through us to bring wholeness. That’s what God does – makes things whole. We don't need to feel powerless over social systems that reinforce injustice; we can ask how God would have us exercise our faith with the Holy Spirit in that realm.

Where are you being invited to take authority in your life? It might be over a personal matter; it might be something in the natural order, or an illness or injury. You might say, "Lord, let your power flow through me.” And if necessary, like the disciples, “Increase my faith.”

We don’t have to take authority in a “large and in charge” kind of way. We don’t have to be negative about the obstacles – we can simply stand firm in the power and love of God, unequivocal in our faith that God is in charge and God is at work through our prayers.

The only thing we can do wrong thing is not pray, to shrug our shoulders and walk away, going, “Oh well, that’s bigger than me.” It may be bigger than you and me, but it ain’t bigger than the God who made us.

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10-1-19 - Mulberries and Mustard Seeds

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

Jesus said, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you."

Do you feel you have faith to command trees to be uprooted and replanted? I don't. Yet Jesus says the tiniest amount of real faith could effect such a thing.

Jesus demonstrated a disconcerting authority over the natural order – winds and waves, water and wine, fevers and diseased cells, and, yes, trees, yielded to his command. He suggests that we share this authority by virtue of our participation in the Life of God. I know of one person with strong healing gifts who took that authority at face value and began to pray that fearsome weather systems would weaken and turn, and seismic events settle. There's no way to trace outcomes of such prayers back to the prayer itself - too many factors at play - but why not pray in faith, with authority?

Jesus suggests we don’t have to have a LOT of faith to allow God to work miracles through us. We just need real faith. Perhaps Jesus’ somewhat cranky reply to his disciples’ request to “increase our faith” is to say that, where faith is concerned, it’s not quantity but quality that counts. We don’t have to whip ourselves into a frenzy of faith over “big” things – we are invited to bring our faith, however strong or weak it feels, to bear on any situation that challenges us.

And then we are to trust that the power and love of God that flows through us as children of God can do mighty things, far more than we can do, or even imagine. And when we join our faith with others in prayer, the flow of power is even greater.

What’s a BIG thing you’d like to invite the power and love of God to affect today? Say, government deadlock? Civil wars and famines? Cancer in a beloved? Your own mood?

What’s a small thing you’d like to invite the power and love of God to affect today? It’s always good to exercise our faith on the small things. As with muscles, our faith gets stronger when exercised.

We don't have to worry about how much faith we have – just step out with what you got. Jesus promised that “where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” (Mt 18:20) That means that when we invoke Jesus’ name in prayer, we are invoking his presence through his Spirit. That means He is praying with us – and that means one person in the group is praying with full and perfect faith. Whatever we add to that is sufficient to move many things, even if it’s only a tiny little mustard seed.

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